Mincor has hit best-ever grades at the “Cassini” nickel prospect near Kambalda as evidence of a large, high grade nickel sulphide system just keeps piling up.

The miner’s share price, which has ranged between 31.5c and 47.5c over the last 12 months, was up 4.5 per cent to 34.5c in early trade.

Mincor (ASX:MCR) wants to grow its nickel resources of 3.3mt at 3.6 per cent for 118,000t at its Kambalda projects in Western Australia ahead of a possible mining decision in the second half of next year.

An orebody above 3 per cent nickel is usually considered high grade.

The latest drilling intercept of 7.17 metres at 11.49 per cent nickel from 457m was Mincor’s best-to-date from Cassini.

It was also 100m away from the current 18,700 tonne Cassini resource, but easily reached from any underground mining development, the company said.

A scoping study is already well advanced at Cassini, but this latest discovery will see Mincor change the metrics of the scoping study it had underway.

The Mincor share price over the past 12 months.
The Mincor share price over the past 12 months.

Miners undertake up to four different types of studies to determine whether or not a resource can be mined economically.

These are, in order of importance, scoping, preliminary feasibility (PFS), definitive feasibility (DFS) and bankable feasibility (BFS).

The company told investors that these “promising intersections” could significantly build the resources at the prospect and follow-up drilling is on progress.

“it just feels like the Cassini project has a number of fronts that are opening up in front of us,” Mincor managing director Peter Muccilli told Stockhead.

“We see a lot of nickel, and we think this has the hallmarks of something special.

“When you get intersections like this — which aren’t included in the scoping study — its very important that you don’t cap the value by putting the scoping study out early.

There’s real merit in drilling this out a bit more and incorporating its scale into the scoping study.

“I think that’s prudent move.”

Cassini wants to define reserves at several deposits in the Kambalda region next year to provide a sound basis for restarting  nickel mining.

Cassini has said  it would like to make a nickel mining decision in the second half of 2019, with North Kambalda and Cassini then ramping up toward production.

Mincor, which also has a small operating gold mine, had $11 million in the bank at the end of September.

 

 

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