Nickel dispatch begins at Nova

The first cargo of concentrate from Independence Group’s Nova nickel mine has been dispatched to Kambalda, with the site’s processing plant to reach nameplate production capacity of 1.5 million tonnes per annum in the middle of next year.

About 50 per cent of the mine’s production for the first three years will be delivered to BHP Billiton Nickel West’s Kambalda facility, with the remainder shipped via Esperance in a three-year contract with Glencore.

Nicklel concentrate shipping is expected to start in June next year, with Hudson Shipping the contractor, while copper concentrate is expected to begin dispatch to offtake partner Dutch company Trafigura around the same time.

The next move at project will be drilling and resource estimation at the Conductor Five deposit, which sits above the Nova-Bollinger deposit.

Swick Mining Services has begun that work and will complete it before March 2017.

The price of nickel, a commodity used in steel making as an alloy, among other products, have recovered marginally since lows earlier this year to be around $US5 per pound.

That's still down 60 per cent from five years ago, however.

Independence Group managing director Peter Bradford said today's announcement was an important milestone for the Nova project.

"(The shipment) took place earlier than contemplated by the feasibility study and in line with the guidance we provided to the market in our ASX release of October 26 2016," Mr Bradford said.

GR Engineering has completed performance testing of the processing facility, and has demobilised from site, while Swick is achieving better underground drilling rates than anticipated in the project's feasibility study.

It comes 15 months after Independence acquired previous project proponent Sirius Resources in a $1.8 billion deal.

About 9.7 kilometres of underground mining has taken place at Nova since boxcut excavation started at the site in January 2015.

At that time, Sirius revised down the cost of the project to $443 million, with Independence indicating today they had hit that target.

Development in the thickest portions of the field is expected in the middle of next year.

Shares in Independence Group were 2.8 per cent higher at $4.41 at the close of trade.