Cobalt Blue : Demonstration Plant Transitioning to Operations

Market Update

only26 July 2022

C balt Blue Holdings Limited

A Green Energy

Exploration
Company
use	ASX Code:		COB
personal
Commodity Exposure:
Cob lt & Sulphur
Directors & Management:
Robert Biancardi	Non-Exec Chairman
Hugh Keller	Non-Exec Director
R bert McDonald	Non-Exec Director
J e Kaderavek	CEO & Exec Director
Danny Morgan	CFO & Company
			Secretary
Capital Structure:
O dina y Shares at 26/07/2022:	322.2m
Unlisted Options/Rights:	18.1m
Mark t Cap (undiluted):	$251m
Share Price:
Share Price at 26/07/2022:	$0.78

	Broken Hill		HIGHWAY
	BARRIER
	Sydney	HILL	BrokenHill
Adelaide		BROKEN
	TO
	KM
	23
EL 6622				N
EL 8143
orF				Broken
Pyrite Hill			EL 8891
Big Hill			Hill
		Cobalt
Railway			Project

Cobalt Blue Holdings Limited

ACN: 614 466 607

Address: Suite 17.03, 100 Miller Street North Sydney NSW 2060

Ph: [phone]

Website: www.cobaltblueholdings.com

Email: [e-mail]

Social: Cobalt.Blue.Energy  cobalt-blue-holdings

Highlights

Demonstration Plant Transitioning to Operations

KEY POINTS

• Cobalt Blue Holdings Limited (ASX:COB) has completed mining 2,300 t of ore for the Broken Hill Cobalt Project (BHCP)
  Demonstration Plant Program.
• Comminution and concentrate circuits are commissioned with operations underway.
• Transitioning to operations for remainder of plant aiming to produce Mixed Hydroxide Precipitate (MHP) and cobalt sulphate.
• Large scale (industry pre-qualification) test samples expected to be shipped from August.

Cobalt Blue's Chairman, Rob Biancardi said:

"24-hour operations will commence shortly across the entire Demonstration Plant. This reflects real progress by our technical team and will allow BHCP to ship large scale test samples during Q3, providing a strong backdrop to commercial discussions."

Demonstration Plant

COB has designed, built, and is now commissioning and operating a Demonstration Plant in Broken Hill. The plant is aiming to treat a minimum of 3,000 t of ore (up to 4,000 t) and produce circa 10 t of cobalt products (mixed hydroxide and/or cobalt sulphate).

During 2021 COB successfully built and operated a smaller scale Pilot Plant. This facility has now been upgraded over the last six months to increase capacity and includes all processing unit operations to treat ore to produce MHP (typically 30% cobalt and 5% nickel), followed by refining to cobalt sulphate. The Demonstration Plant program forms a key basis for the Broken Hill Cobalt Project Definitive Feasibility Study.

Ore for the plant is being sourced from the Pyrite Hill deposit. A 60 m long underground portal was developed to access the orebody. To date 2,300 t of ore has been extracted.

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The ore has been stage crushed, followed by dry milling in a roller mill to a top size of ~ 1 mm. The fine ore is now being processed through the concentrator circuit. The concentrate circuit is comprised of rougher and cleaner gravity spirals, and a scavenger flotation cell. The target is to generate a minimum of 600 t of concentrate from 3,000 t of ore.

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The pyrite concentrate will be treated using the COB patented flowsheet to recover cobalt and elemental sulphur. The flowsheet is shown in Figure 1. In addition to the milling and concentrator circuits, the Demonstration Plant contains:

• A kiln for thermal decomposition of pyrite into pyrrhotite and elemental sulphur
• An autoclave circuit for leaching pyrrhotite
• Iron removal circuit
• MHP circuit
• Refining circuit to produce cobalt sulphate (ion-exchange, solvent extraction, crystallisation)
• Onsite production of oxygen for the leach, and nitrogen for the kiln

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Figure 1 - BHCP Process Diagram

MINE	CONCENTRATE	CALCINE		LEACH
	ORE
OPEN-PIT MINE	CRUSHER	THERMAL	LEACHING
		DECOMPOSITION
	SEPARATION	CALCINE	RESIDUE
	PROCESSING
	TAILINGS
LESS THAN 2km			LEACH
HAULAGE TO			SULPHUR
		RESIDUE
PROCESSING	CONCENTRATE	SULPHUR
(Fe2O3)
TARGET	TARGET	TARGET	TARGET
6-6.3 MTPA Ore	1 MTPA Con (17% mass recovery)	0.8 MTPA Calcine	>95% cobalt leaching
STRIP RATIO	CONCENTRATE GRADE	(80% mass recovery)	<2% Fe and S leaching
CALCINE GRADE
2.9t waste to 1t ore	0.45% Co, 40% Fe, 45% S	LEACH RESIDUE
ROM AVERAGE GRADE	CONCENTRATE RECOVERY	0.5% Co, 50% Fe, 30% S	Iron Oxide (Fe2O3) +
SULPHUR RECOVERY	Elemental Sulphur (S)
0.07 % Co, 7.4% S, 8.5% Fe	90-95% Co, 80% Fe, 90% S

45% S from concentrate

PRODUCT RECOVERY

MINOR METALS REMOVAL

MHP PRECIPITATION

Co CRYSTALLISATION

COBALT SULPHATE

(CoSO4.7H2O)

TARGET

Target ROM to Product 85-90% Co recovery 70-75% S recovery

CoSO4 >20.5% grade S >99% grade MHP - 38% Co, 7% Ni

For

The Demonstration Plant program is expected to operate in aggregate for 20 weeks on a 24/7 basis. The program will be split into campaigns, to allow for analysis and optimisation of the plant performance.

Samples of MHP and cobalt sulphate will be provided to prospective offtake parties. Early supply of samples will assist with qualification into the battery manufacturing chain, ahead of future commercial operations at the BHCP.

Samples of cobalt sulphate will also be provided to the Australian Future Batteries Industry CRC Precursor Pilot Plant. This plant was recently opened in Perth (11th July 2022). The Pilot Plant is a collaborative activity with 19 industry, research and Government participants (https://fbicrc.com.au/cathode-facility-officially-launched/). COB looks forward to production of Australian NCM precursor using BHCP cobalt sulphate as a raw material input.

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Figure 2 - Mine site - crushed ore stockpiles

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Figure 3 - Concentrator - in action

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Figure 4 - Kiln - with scrubber

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Figure 5 - Pressure Oxidation Vessels

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Figure 6 - Demonstration Plant Control System

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Figure 7 - Cobalt refining - manganese removal

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