Lounge lizard nickel

In 2012 Western Areas Limited purchased the Lounge Lizard Nickel Mine, 138 kilometres from Southern Cross in Western Australia, from Kagara Mining which went into voluntary administration in April of the same year.

Lounge Lizard Nickel Mine Accessed via a Decline From the Adjacent Flying Fox Mine
Prior to acquiring the Lounge Lizard Nickel Mine, Western Areas Limited had been managing and operating the mine on behalf of Kagara Mining and had granted access to its underground workings via a decline from their own Flying Fox underground operations.

Lounge Lizard Nickel Mine now Part of the Forrestania Operation
The acquisition was regarded as a natural evolution of further developing the Lounge Lizard Nickel mine as part of Western Area's mineral rich Forrestania resources, as the mine is adjacent to the Flying Fox deposit that is widely regarded, along with the Spotted Quol mine, as the richest nickel deposit in the world. The adding of the Lounge Lizard Nickel mine to the Flying Fox asset will act to substantially extend the 10 year life of the Flying Fox mine therefore providing longevity to the company's core operations at the wider Forrestania nickel mining development.

Lounge Lizard Nickel Mine's Close Connection to Western Areas Forrestania Operations
A further attraction to the purchase was that the ore mined at the Lounge Lizard Nickel mine is processed at Western Area's Forrestania Nickel Concentrate Plant. The concentrate is then sold into Western Area's own offtake contracts along with its other Forrestania productions. This arrangement has been adhered since 2009 when Kagara and Western Areas entered into an agreement to mine and process 50,000 tonnes of ore a year from the Lounge Lizard nickel mine. At the same time Kagara paid $20 million to Western Areas for access to be provided to its Lounge Lizard deposit via the Flying Fox decline.

The Forestania Package
The Western Areas Limited Forrestania operation consists of the following:
- The underground nickel mines; Lounge Lizard Nickel, Spotted Quol and Flying Fox
- A comprehensive tenement package that is highly prospective for ongoing nickel discoveries
- The Cosmic Boy Concentrator
- Accommodation village capable of housing 450 personnel
- Power connected to the state grid
- Airstrip
- Nickel concentrate export facilities
- Water network

Cosmic Boy Concentrator Processes Lounge Lizard Nickel Mine ore
The Cosmic Boy Concentrator that processes all the ore retrieved from the Forrestania operations produces a consistent nickel concentrate of around 14 percent nickel. It is designed to handle 550,000 tonnes of ore a year that can be increased to one million tonnes when and if required. The plant has a three stage crushing circuit, a single closed circuit ball mill, a series of flotation tanks and a filtration/thickening system. It has a recovery rate from 92 to 93 percent nickel.

Nickel from the Lounge Lizard Nickel Mine helps fill two of the Western Areas sales contracts. One, a long term contract with BHP Billiton for 12,000 tonnes a year and the other a short term contract with Chinese company Jinchuan that will expire in late 2013.
Nickel concentrate is sealed in half height containers at the Forrestania processing plant and then taken to the port at Esperance for exporting to China where it is taken to Junchuan's smelters at Gansu Province in central China.
†