Recent Cobalt 27 Article - Processing Related https://stockhouse.com/companies/bullboard?symbol=v.fpx&postid=29350829 I made this post to the FPX board but it should also be of interest here. FPX is a development stage company so the processing aspects in the article are more germane, but the article is also good for general interest. BAR might need to think about these things in detail at some point.
Some of what I want to say here is rooted in my readings from RNC Dumont, where the issue of access to smelting capacity is a real problem. RNC has pursued various roasting schemes to enter the NPI supply stream without going through the smelting step. The problem for them, and possibly for BAR is that cobalt credits are lost with roasting/NPI. Cobalt is only recoverable with smelting or HPAL.
I asked Foulkes about this at VRIC and his answer was they had talked to some smelters a while ago and he figured that access would not be a problem, because the Grasset concentrate grade would be high and the volume would be low. By contrast RNC Dumont is a monster than might benefit from its own smelter. FPX Baptiste does not have any of these problems, because the ore has no cobalt, contains no sulfides, and can be concentrated magnetically. Avoiding the 35% cut that smelters take off the top is why Baptiste will have a high margin from a low grade ore.
Foulkes said that smelting terms had not yet been discussed by that it would probably amount to no more that 10K TPA of nickel for 15 years, or about 150KT of nickel total. And they still have a ways to go to get to that number. The high grade will certainly help.