WHY WE LIKE JERVOIS MINING !!!!

Featured Company
Jervois Mining N.L. (ASX: JRV) is engaged in the exploration of six promising mineral tenements and one oil and gas tenement in Australia. The Company's most advanced and promising project, the Young Tenement, contains total resources of 280 million tonnes at 0.58% Ni and 0.06% Co

Jervois lodges NOI to mine in Phoenix pit

Jervois Mining NL, as manager of the Bullabuling Gold Joint Venture (BGJV) in WA, has lodged with the Department of Minerals and Petroleum Resources (DMPR) a Notice Of Intent (NOI) to mine in the Phoenix pit and to treat the ore produced.

An NOI is necessary prior to mining operations and needs to be approved by a DMPR engineer and environmental officer. Since mining and treatment have taken place in this location before, the approvals are expected to be given within weeks. Mining will commence as soon as the NOI is granted. The mining will produce some 10,000oz of gold over a nine month period.

The recommencement of mining is significant for Jervois as it will produce an operational profit of over $2m within a short time frame and will also provide working capital to further explore the project area. This is the first step towards developing the full potential of the project area. Processing equipment is being moved to site and construction of infrastructure is expected to be complete by the end of the month.

The BGJV tenements contain resources of over 400,000oz of gold, with many zones of mineralisation being close to conversion to reserve status. The large database of previous exploration and mining is being evaluated by the company's geologists. A priority program for both development and exploration will be recommended.

The BGJV is undertaking a review of the Dickson's mineralisation, for which an NOI had been submitted in the past. The current operational plan allows for the mining of Dickson's early in the New Year to maintain continuity with the Phoenix deposit.


WILDCARD
Jervois Mining (JRV, $0.045) HOLD
Mining investor Ian Murray took a stake in the Melbourne-based Jervois Mining in late May. The stock, which only traded on 12 days in May, was then priced at between three and four cents, but the news that Mr Murray had acquired a 9 per cent stake - via a placement of 14.5 million shares - helped push the stock to a 12-month high of 6.5 cents on June 26. (It also sparked more trading activity in June). But investors shouldn't get too excited. Jervois Mining, which is involved in petroleum exploration in Western Australia and cobalt, nickel and scandium in New South Wales, teased the market about a year ago when it almost touched seven cents, only to fall back to below three cents. On past form prospective buyers are likely to get a cheaper entry price. Hold.

Features
Jervois Puts Its Bet On New High Tech Method For Recovery Of Nickel And Cobalt From Laterites

It would be ironic if Aussie listed Jervois Mining found a way to crack the troublesome high pressurisation component which has dogged Anaconda's Murrin Murrin project and the other Australian nickel laterite producers. Since February it has been in talks with an unnamed company about trialling a new high tech method of recovering nickel and cobalt without pressurisation and has just revealed its partner and some information on the trials.

The partner is a Navada company which goes by the rather quaint name of The Technology Store. Its president is Dr Willem P C Duyvesteyn who has had a long
career in the nickel/cobalt/copper industry, starting with Zambian Anglo American in 1968, at AMAX from 1975 until 1985 and progressing ultimately to BHP where he pioneered this and other processes, some of which are now used commercially, at BHP's Centre for Minerals Technology in Reno. When the Centre closed late last year TTS Inc acquired certain rights to the process now being assessed by Jervois Mining. It is patented by BHP, which also retain the rights to use the technology itself, and if it comes into commercial production BHP will receive royalties from TTS.

It is the Young project in New South Wales, which is Jervois's major asset, to which this technology is being applied. Information on the company is pretty limited on its website, though it appears to have seven properties around Australia incuding gold in New South Wales joint with Newcrest and Rhyolite Creek in Victoria in jv with Perseverance. Even the whereabouts of Young is referred to, somewhat obliquely, as being located in a prime position with access to road and rail transport and has the added benefit of having the Moomba-Sydney natural gas-pipeline pass across the resource. Drilling has so far identified a total resource of 196 million tonnes at 0.59% Ni, 0.06%Co, of which 163 million tonnes are indicated and the rest inferred.

If the technology works it would transform the economics of production and 5,000 tonnes of nickel a year from small laterite resources of 10-15 million tonnes grading around 1% nickel would be a possibility. A 600 kg laterite sample from Young is now being tested and initial reports are positive. Actual recoveries of nickel from the saprolite and weathered serpentine were 76 per cent and 85 per cent and are projected to reach 85per cent and 95 per cent respectively. It is significant that the crystalline nature of the resources which occur in the Young area are, inherently, ideally suited to this new process.

This is just the start of a long test programme, but if it reaches the commercial stage TTS will have a 30 per cent stake in Jervois and Jervois will have exclusive rights to the TTS Technology for Australia. The prize is high and both companies are committed, but they will probably have to put up with a lot of flack from the high pressure merchants along the way.

Our world-class speakers

Annette Beacher, Salomon Smith Barney/Citibank

Dr Chris Pointon, BHP Billiton

Vanessa Davidson, CRU International, UK

Senior Executive, Norilsk Nickel, Russia

Alan Heap, Salomon Smith Barney

Andrew Forrest, Anaconda Nickel

John O’Shea, Nickel Australasia

John Lynch, Weda Bay Minerals Inc.

Stuart Jones, NSR Environmental Consultants

Michael Cook, Outokumpu Oyj

Dr Michael Hawkins, Cobalt Development Institute

Burn Tinker, OM Group

George MacDonald, Compass Resources NL

Representative, Falconbridge

David Russell, Argosy Minerals Inc.

David Moore, Mincor Resources NL

Glenn Jardine, LionOre Australia

Duncan Pursell, Jervois Mining

Don Boyer, West Musgrave Mining

Donald Thomson, Acclaim Exploration