IT'S interesting to hear that Minara Resources is turning its back on high-pressure acid leaching for treating its laterite nickel ore, the method embraced by Andrew Forrest when he launched and heavily promoted Minara's forerunner, Anaconda Nickel, but which almost brought that company undone. Instead Minara is opting for heap leaching, a technology proven in the gold and copper industries.
So is GME Resources, Minara's next-door neighbour near Leonora in the northwest. GME had a good run this week after announcing its Murrin Murrin project was a goer. The price movement suggests investors are getting past their scepticism about laterite nickel as memories of the Anaconda debacle fade. Minara's commitment to heap leaching has given GME's strategy the necessary credibility.
The high-pressure technology extracts the nickel in less than an hour, the heap leaching in 200 days. But heap is much cheaper and simpler -- and trials by Minara have been very promising. GME's value has gone from $75 million last November to $225 million now -- but see that in the context of the resource amenable to heap leaching being worth more than $40 billion at present nickel prices.
And GME plans to produce 630 tonnes of cobalt byproduct a year. Cobalt is selling this month at $US67,000 a tonne, and Credit Suisse is predicting a 67 per cent rise in 2007 due to increasing aerospace and gas-to-liquids applications.
MOST cobalt is produced as a byproduct. But Central West Gold is an interesting case because the metal is the dominant one at its project near Grafton, NSW. While nickel or copper explorers get excited if they also get 0.1 per cent cobalt, Central West recently hit 1m at 3.36 per cent. Lots of work still to do, but the company has another project in its back pocket. It holds ground near Goulburn with promising manganese-cobalt indicators.
I have been on GME for a very long time, i Still remember when he wrote an article regarding about GME late last year. The monday after he wrote this GME went upto 45%, and in a month doulbe in value. He seem to be respected in the share maerket community i wonder how much GME will go up next week. $40 billion worth of resources, $230M market cap, hmmmm makes you think doesnt it :D
GME Price at posting:
0.0¢ Sentiment: Buy Disclosure: Held
