Impact (ASX:IPT) produces top-quality HPA in WA

Impact Minerals has produced high-purity alumina exceeding 99.99 per cent and marked a key milestone at its Lake Hope project in Western Australia.

A Playa One proprietary and patented sulphate process produced the result, backing up a recent scoping study which showed heady economics as a producer of 4N product at potentially cheaper costs than any other global competitor.

Playa One is the current owner of Lake Hope, but Impact can earn up to an 80% interest in the company by completing a pre-feasibility study on the project, which is now on track for completion by the end of 2024.

And production of larger quantities can now begin using an optimised process to show off a consistent quality to potential buyers.

Impact Managing Director Dr Mike Jones said achieving the high grade of alumina was a major milestone and an exciting result to have proven a high-value product commanding prices of US$20,000 per tonne or more can be produced from the top 2 metres of Lake Hope.

“It underpins the results of the scoping study, which showed an NPV of $1.3 billion for the project and, at less than US$4,000 per tonne, possibly the lowest cost of production of HPA globally by a significant margin of up to 50%,” Dr Jones said.

“We have also optimised the Playa One sulphate process and have already started batch production of HPA to demonstrate consistent quality to our potential customers.”

Dr Jones added that marketing had demonstrated very strong demand for the high-value product, and Impact will continue progressing its pre-feasibility study for the project as quickly as possible.

“In addition, we recently uncovered two other possible process routes to produce HPA from these remarkable clays, which may offer yet further reductions in operating cost and capital expenditure if our initial test work is positive, and we are looking forward to getting those results soon,” he said.

Lake Hope Alumina

The Lake Hope alumina clays rest in the top 2m of a pair of salt lakes and host a deposit holding about 880,000 tonnes of alumina.

A unique combination of extremely fine-grained materials in free-digging clays which require no crushing or screening means low-cost extraction, and Impact is not alone in seeing heavy demand for the product.

A recent Grand View Research report expected the US$3.18 billion high-purity alumina market to grow at a significant compound annual growth rate of 22.2% through to 2030.

The 4N product produced by Impact currently dominates the global industry, accounting for the maximum share of more than 40% of overall revenue.

Watch Dr Jones go into detail on Lake Hope alumina at the first Stock Soirée:

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