Located 100km south-east of Anaconda’s giant Murrin Murrin laterite nickel project, the Mt Weld deposits are said to contain about 107 million pounds of tantalum, the largest in ground resource in the world.
Over at Murrin Murrin, Anaconda has filed a $1 billion claim against engineering group Fluor Daniel concerning lengthy delays to the project
The action comes after the company received a $113 million insurance pay-out for a 14 month delay caused by faulty autoclave components, which had to be replaced.
Murrin Murrin had reached 32% capacity at the end of May, about 15 months behind schedule. Anacnda has blamed Fluor for all the problems, claiming it did not deliver proper engineering design or material selection.
Chief executive Andrew Forrest told the Diggers and Dealers forum in Kalgoorlie that he expected the project to reach its full operating capacity of 45,000 tonnes of nickel by the second half of next year. Plans to install a fifth autoclave by early 2002 would see production lift to 60,000 tonnes.
Anaconda is the largest of three companies using new technology to extract nickel from laterite ores once thought to be worthless.
