AZS (ASX) Ann: Andover Continues to Return High Grade Nickel and Copper

Originally posted by domain: ↑

Think this is just for VC07 East. According to Far east capital:

The program has evolved from that of green fields exploration to resource definition on a 50m x 50m pattern, utilising three drill rigs. While the company has to do the work to come up with the JORC compliant numbers, we can speculate that so far we are looking at mineralisation measuring 400m x 300m, at widths of 10-15m, with grades of 1-1.2% Ni and 0.5-0.6% Cu. The high grade massive sulphides assay in the range of 2.3-2.5% Ni. We could be looking at 4-8 million tonnes of mineralisation available for underground mining so far as a starting point. Don’t forget the exploration potential on another 4-5 EM anomalies. To date there has been a 100% success rate on conductors drilled, so expect more positive news as the program continues. Other gold exploration projects Without going into any detail, we note that Azure has gold exploration ground near De Grey’s Hemi discovery, with 12 km of strike length to be tested. Barton is another gold prospect, mostly soil covered, south of Leonora. The Bottom Line Azure has 60% of a noteworthy nickel/copper discovery that should progress to a long life mine at some point. There is considerable exploration upside to consider. The $100m market capitalisation is modest given the potential and the $34.6m cash balance as at 30 June, which means there is no need to go to the market for additional funding in the foreseeable future. Nickel and copper stocks are in strong demand owing to the alternative energy and battery opportunities. While there will be trading opportunities as speculator interest waxes and wanes, there is strong longer term growth merit.

http://www.fareastcapital.com.au/imagesDB/newsletter/WeeklyComm28August2021.pdf

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I reckon that using a 1% Ni cutoff would result in a mineable (underground) body that is around 3m wide at best, and less than a million tonnes with a grade of around 2% nickel with some additional value from copper and not so much from cobalt. Even if the drillout of VC7 results in a million tonnes at 2% nickel the value of the metal contained would be short of the billion dollar number that is needed to justify the SP presently. I just cannot see that mining 1% underground would make any money. If the calculated resource at VC7 is in the 1% nickel range it will not mean much. Azure needs to drill their additional targets at Andover and get cracking on that straight away.