Mincor ends Kambalda discovery drought
Mincor Resources’ Cassini nickel deposit is the first nickel discovery in Kambalda in 20 years, and the company sees no reason it can’t continue to grow (reports MiningNews).
17th July 2020
Resources Rising Stars
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Mincor Resources’ Cassini nickel deposit is the first nickel discovery in Kambalda in 20 years, and the company sees no reason it can’t continue to grow (reports MiningNews).
"We've made a brand new discovery in Australia's richest nickel belt," Mincor managing director David Southam said last week.
"What it shows is mature areas that don't have greenfields exploration can unearth particularly exciting deposits."
Southam estimates less than $20 million has been spent on exploration in the area over that time.
"So we've come along, we've made a discovery on a new belt called Cassini and we've progressively grown that resource," he said.
Cassini is the most advanced of the nine projects in the Explorer of the Year category of the 2020 MNN Awards, but has also been around longer than most of the others.
It was originally discovered by Mincor in 2015 as part of a regional exploration initiative led by the company's general manager of exploration Rob Hartley.
Former Mincor MD David Moore described the discovery at the time as reflective of "genius" level exploration thinking.
Cassini sits on a newly identified contact and was a blind discovery that was made as a result of systematic exploration utilising a range of techniques including regional mapping, soil sampling, aircore drilling and ground electromagnetic surveys.
However, around the time of the discovery, the nickel price had slumped to below US$10,000 per tonne, forcing Mincor to suspend mining operations.
Mincor turned its attention to gold for a couple of years, but resumed work at Cassini in early 2018.
A maiden resource of 550,000 tonnes at 3.4% nickel for 18,700t of contained nickel was reported in August 2018.
It made Cassini one of the highest grade nickel deposits in the region.
Southam, MNN's 2019 Emerging Leader of the Year, joined the company in February 2019 from Western Areas and firmly focused the company back on nickel.
Cassini became the centrepiece of Mincor's Kambalda restart plans.
Fast-forward nearly two years and Mincor has upgraded the Cassini resource a further three times and reported a maiden reserve.
Following the most recent upgrade last month, Cassini's resource now stands at 1.5 million tonnes at 4% nickel for 58,700t of nickel.
Read more at https://www.miningnews.net/explorer-of-the-year/news/1390839/mnn-awards-mincor-ends-kambalda-discovery-drought
