Official figures show Creasy’s WA nickel-copper find could provide needed feed for hungry Independence
2nd August 2018
Barry Fitzgerald
The public mineralisation report for Australia’s newest nickel-copper-cobalt discovery – Mark Creasy’s privately held Silver Knight find in the Fraser Range – has finally surfaced.
It confirms a sizeable find in its early stages, with obvious implications for Independence Group (IGO), owned 16% by Creasy, which is now a little bit light on mine life 25km down the track at its Nova-Bollinger nickel-copper-cobalt mine after its recent resources restatement.
The public report on Silver Knight – the grey horse of the same name won the 1971 Melbourne Cup and sired the 1984 winner Black Knight – puts the current JORC resource at 4.2m/t grading 0.8% nickel, 0.6% copper and 0.04% cobalt, including a higher grade 200,000/t grading 3% nickel, 1.9% copper and 0.17% cobalt.
The discovery will be the subject of a second phase of RC drilling as well as a diamond program which will test conductors below the current resource.
The overall grade doesn’t match Nova’s but nevertheless the thing looks to be economic, which is why Creasy is applying for a mining lease, the process which has made the discovery public.
Silver Knight could be a handy life-extender for IGO’s Nova on the basis it is down to 13.1m/t of material and planning an increased mining rate of 1.8mtpa. Looks like there is a deal to be done.
Confirmation that Silver Knight is good for 33,000t of nickel, 26,000t of copper, and 1,700t of cobalt early in its exploration history doesn’t hurt sentiment in the broader exploration space either. A nice lead up to next week’s Diggers & Dealers.
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