Toronto-listed Aldebaran Resources expects to start testwork in the first six months of this year to assess the effectiveness of Rio Tinto’s Nuton sulphide leaching technology on material from its Altar copper-gold project in San Juan, Argentina.
Aldebaran said this week it had entered into a collaboration agreement with Nuton LLC, owned by Rio Tinto, and would deliver samples representing various styles of mineralisation from Altar to Nuton for column testing.
Results are expected about a year after the Nuton columns are loaded.
“As part of the agreement Aldebaran has granted exclusivity to Nuton in the area of novel, patented or trade secret leaching technologies, for a period of one year starting on the agreement date of January 9, 2024,” Aldebaran said.
“The parties will share the cost of the test program with Aldebaran covering the cost of preparation and shipping of the samples to Nuton, and Nuton paying for the costs of metallurgical test work.”
Aldebaran CEO John Black said while positive sulphide leaching test results wouldn’t necessarily move the Altar project forward, “it could positively impact the project’s economics, if successful”.
Rio Tinto set up Nuton to commercialise copper leach know-how and technologies resulting from 30 years of research and development in the field, and to help grow its own copper business.
“One of the key differentiators of Nuton is the potential to produce the world’s lowest impact copper while having at least one net positive impact at each of our deployment sites, across our five pillars: water, energy, land, materials and society,” the mining major says.
