Will Legend Mining discover the next big nickel mine or get taken over?

Mining Angela East
asx mining news

Pic: Bloomberg Creative / Bloomberg Creative Photos via Getty Images

Legend Mining boss Mark Wilson isn’t sure if his company will discover the next big nickel mine or get taken over first.

He reckons both are possibilities — and says either would be good news for investors.

“I say to investors who ask me whether they should sell their shares at the moment — we’re either going to make the next discovery or we’re going to get taken over on the journey,” Mr Wilson told Stockhead on the sidelines of the Association of Mining and Exploration Companies convention in Perth this week.

“Both are positive for anybody who’s got shares in the company at the moment.

“Because they won’t take us for 3c [Legend’s current share price] — it will be a lot more than that.”

Since October, Legend’s (ASX:LEG) shares have rocketed 300 per cent to trade at about 3.6c.

Legend has a patch of nickel and copper-prospective land smack-bang in the middle of bigger rival Independence Group’s (ASX:IGO) surrounding operations in the renowned Fraser Range region of Western Australia.

The Fraser Range shot to fame back in 2012 when Sirius uncovered the Nova-Bollinger nickel, copper and cobalt mine, which eventually earned the company’s backers the very large sum of $1.8 billion.

Independence acquired Sirius and has been doing other deals with juniors in the region. Most recently the company took a 4.9 per cent stake in newly listed Galileo Mining.

Famous prospector Mark Creasy has stakes in both Legend and Galileo’s projects. Mr Creasy was also a joint venture partner in the Nova-Bollinger project.

Legend Mining (ASX:LEG) shares over the past year.
Legend Mining (ASX:LEG) shares over the past year.

The voraciousness with which Independence is doing deals in the Fraser Range has prompted speculation that Legend could also be a takeover target.

Legend believes it has all the right ingredients to turn its Rockford nickel and copper project into the next Nova nickel mine.

The project has a gravity high, a characteristic of the Nova deposit, and it also has the same proportions of pyrrhotite, pentlandite and chalcopyrite minerals that Nova has.

“I think it’s totally alive,” Mr Wilson explained.

“Where we are working at the moment we’ve got all the right juices. We need to do some geophysics, get some deeper targets and drill them.

“It could be a [reverse circulation] diamond hole in the last quarter of this year, that’s how close we could be.”

According to Mr Wilson, Legend’s Rockford deposit is looking like the Nova deposit did about six months before Sirius drilled and made its big discovery.

“Our section almost looks identical, with regolith – a mineralised blanket sitting over the top of a gabbronorite host rock – but they then got a deep target, drilled it and found Nova,” he said.

“We need to get those deep targets, drill it, find super nova and then everybody will go whacko.”

Related Stories