Hmm, Jand J Thanks for your two bobs worth. The nickel thing will require circa $2 billion, so $100 mill would be a drop in the bucket. But of a predator wanted that world class nickel deposit, it would have to be a major. World class deposits are the only ones worth their while. If they wanted that, but had to buy everything else to get it, they may be less inclined to bid. But if there were fewer other things attached, a bid may be more likely. At the moment I don't feel the huge dormant deposit is adding much to MLX market capitalisation. It is all ready. It is thoroughly drilled out, documented, all the approvals are done and the native title agreements are done and dusted. Adequate artesian water has been found, plus rock nearby that can be processed to make the processing acid for the plant has been located. If there was a battle, we could see a deposit we have put a low value on turn into a major winner for us. Nickel prices have been improving quite a bit lately but are hardly boom prices.
To top it off there is gas not that far away over the NT border, and the worlds largest coking coal deposits found in the area of the Perdika basin? from memory, over the other Qld end of the border. There is more coking coal in (and it is high grade) that one deposit than in the rest of the world combined. Some seams are 200m plus thick and there seems to be an average of 300m of coal seam in the first 1000 m from the surface. This could make a steel operation in central Australia, using nickel and cobalt to make high grade steel such as stainless and military grades. (Cobalt is used in armour etc) 50% of the deposit is iron in granular form which would hardly need crushing so the by product from nickel separation could virtually be fed straight into a blast furnace.
Why has there been no attempt yet to access this huge coal resource? It is "stranded", that is, too far from the coast to be economical to shift. The drill holes were in a foursquare pattern 50 kms apart, and all returned about the same result.[/QUOTE
Hi Hightrax , not sure about the predator thing, I think Samsung have that covered with their MoU and that to me has always been the elephant in the room as far as my investment in mlx goes, the gold success is a very pleasant bonus, glta .
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