Yes, that really is an excellent article on Stock Head - "Primary REE potential adds more shine to Golden Mile’s Quicksilver nickel-cobalt project".
And we seem slowly to be getting onto more people's radars.
Prompts me to provide a G88 'State of the Onion' (yes, plenty of layers here ), if you'll bear with me:
Quicksilver Base Case
1.We have the Quicksilver nickel-cobalt oxide resource. It is shallow, free-dig, and looks amenable to commercialisation via simple, mechanical processing.
That’s our base case proposition – and the reason Damon joined the team – to develop and build out a low-energy beneficiation operation for extraction of nickel, cobalt, iron, chromium and industrial aggregates.
The Quicksilver Base Case is worth multiples of our present Market Cap, though none but a few (like our cornerstone investor Rajiv Ramnarayan), quite get it for now.
I guess we can live with that. Folks don’t seem to grasp quite how readily Quicksilver clays beneficiate up to concentrates that are eagerly sought and readily saleable. Perhaps the Stage 3 Met testwork, which will finesse grades and recoveries, will finally convince.
However, exciting as it is (or should be!) that’s only part of the story ...
Base Case Augmented – REE Secondary Mineralisation
2. There is something very unusual about the Quicksilver deposit, because within the same mineralised envelope as the nickel-cobalt, we’ve had REE hits that represent a significant find in their own right. Not only has Quicksilver yielded some impressive REE grades, 3D modelling suggests the oxide clay-hosted REE mineralisation may extend beyond the northwest and southeast limits of current resource drilling. So - large, and possible to grow as well.
The potential to beneficiate this REE material along the same simple mechanical lines as the Ni-Co-Fe-Cr (producing a concentrate without the need for hydrometallurgy) at little extra handling cost, is also being studied as part of the Stage 3 Met. Of itself, this REE material could materially boost the economics of the project.
But it also leads one to ponder…
What Lies Beneath – REE Primary Mineralisation?
3. So far, we’ve only been talking about secondary mineralisation – encompassing all the near-surface deposition that has so far comprised the entire Quicksilver Project. But as Jordan remarked back in the Company’s March 1 2023 Announcement: “…The oxide REE mineralisation (“secondary”; “supergene”) is an indication of an unknown nearby primary source of REE mineralisation at depth.” Thursday’s Announcement shows the fruit of our geos’ marshalling of the evidence and modelling, which has potentially identified a carbonatite (primary or hard rock) source for all that near-surface REE mineralisation.
And that could recalibrate the scale of Quicksilver altogether – making the current shallow Ni-Co mineralised envelope merely a lucrative hors d’oeuvre to the main course.
While it is hard to place a definitive speculative valuation on such a development, it’s plain that G88’s market capitalisation, which barely gives credence to Quicksilver Base Case, let alone the Project’s full possibilities (and I haven’t even mentioned the huge Yuinmery gold anomaly), is way out of step with all that’s happening here.
What I do know is something will catalyse it soon.
), if you'll bear with me:
(20min delay)