We have lost our resident Geo back to the workforce but I have...

We have lost our resident Geo back to the workforce but I have pieced together below some of his earlier comments around size potential and value of a large ore body at 0.2% Ni.


The scale of the conductors is large. The Mulga Monster, conductor W, has dimensions of 1000x1000m. Given the thick intersections >200m it gives a target of 1000x1000x200x2.7= 540 million tonnes.
With the other targets thrown in a very large exploration target of around 1 billion tonnes is possible. Whilst this might be a bit fanciful, as it relies on all conductors having mineralisation and the 200m thickness, it illustrates that if even one of these conductors comes up a large tonnage is possible. Given the historic drill results there is good reason to be optimistic that the drilling programme will intersect Ni-Cu-PGE mineralisation.

It is interesting to calculate what the equivalent grade and value per tonne might be. If we assume a large body of 0.2% Ni with 0.25 g/t Pt+Pd (80% Pd).$18 Pd + $6.8 Pt + $90 Ni based upon $45,000 per tonne = $114.8/t = 1.4 g/t Au = 0.94 % Cu200m or more at 1.4 g/t or 0.94% Cu sounds alright to me.

If Nickel is $25,000 per tonne then the value with Pt+Pd credits is $74.8/t = 0.95 g/t Au = 0.61% Cu this still sounds pretty good to me over 200m. This does not include copper credits which we know exist but not enough data to guesstimate.

I am probably more excited about hitting a 200m thick ore zone with 0.2-0.4% Ni plus Cu and Pt+Pd credits than more 1m and 2m 1-2% Ni intercepts. If there is a sweet spot where the 1-2% Ni zone thickens to 10m or so then that would be great. All possible, who knows. Don't you just love exploration.