Tag: Mincor Resources

Posted on

Tonight’s Top Story – Diggers Wrap Up, Award Winners and A Night To Remember.

Once again Diggers and Dealers is done and dusted and all that is left to do is shake off the hangover, process all the information that has spewed out and look forward to next year’s event.  This year Diggers nearly didn’t go ahead but the owners took a leap of faith and pencilled in the October dates and then worked their butts off to ensure it happened.  Congratulations to the organisers for bringing together a wonderful three days of presentations, displays and functions.

For me a couple of the outstanding presentations were from Mincor and De Grey who outlined really exciting projects that they are involved in.  They are two companies that people should keep an eye on as the projects advance.  That is not to say that all the other presentations weren’t good.  Quite the contrary as the quality of the presentations this year was high.

This year the forum seemed to have an extra buzz about it as people are very bullish on the mining sector at the moment.  The locals in Kalgoorlie Boulder are expressing more confidence in the sector as well and town is really humming at the moment.  There are many projects in the pipeline that the local council is working hard on and this is on the back of Lynas starting construction of their processing plant on the outskirts of the city.  If they all come to fruition Kalgoorlie and surrounds is in for a huge lift.

At the end of every Diggers they have a gala night and awards are presented in different categories.  The winners of this year’s awards are:

The prestigious GJ Stokes Memorial Award went to Ms Gina Rinehart.  The award is in honour of Geoffrey Stokes who started the forum in 1992, with 150 delegates.  Sadly, Geoffrey passed away in 1997 at an early age but his legacy lives on and also recognised in the naming of the award.  As an aside, on Thursday morning after Diggers, the City of Kalgoorlie Boulder laid a plaque in Hannan Street outside the Palace Hotel, the original home of Diggers, as part of their Walk of Fame program.

Ms Rinehart is the first women to receive the award, which is made to someone who has made an exceptional lifetime contribution to the mining industry.  Ms Rinehart took over the Hancock company in the same year Diggers started and has steered the company to be the behemoth it is now.  Her astute business acumen has seen her increase her privately owned assets immensely but has also allowed her to do successful joint venture projects that have increased the value of the company.

Another of the awards, Dealer of the Year, seemed to be a no brainer and was not a surprise when dual winners, Raleigh Finlayson’s Saracen Mineral and Bill Beament’s Northern Star, were announced.  This comes off the back of their respective companies each buying 50% of the famous Kalgoorlie Superpit within a month of each other earlier this year.  The purchase was a great boon to the local community and has instilled new confidence in the sector in the region.  Add to that their yet to be approved $16B merger and these companies have really set the pace in 2020.  They are both young and energetic, which augers well for the new merged company.

Ramelius Resources took out the Digger of the Year award after announcing a 420% increase in net profit.  This came from its operations in the mid-west around Mt Magnet, the Vivien Project near Agnew and in the Westonia Green belt, the Edna May mine.  Producing 230,00koz last financial year it was a great year for the diggers.

Exciting explorer De Grey Mining won the emerging company award for its work in the Pilbara and the discovery of the Hemi project.

Other awards were presented to Dominic Piper in the media category and Georgia Kerr who was presented with the Ray Finlayson prize for Leadership and Academic Excellence.

Congratulations to all the award winners and a big thanks to Myles Ertzen, Sharon Giorgetta and their team at Diggers for once again putting on a great forum and showcasing the great city of Kalgoorlie Boulder.

Posted on

Tonight’s Top Story – Is Nickel The New Gold?

David Southam, Managing Director of Mincor Resources gave a lively presentation about their Kambalda operations and positioning themselves to be a major player in the Nickel sector.

He boldly declared that: “Nickel is the new gold!”, which raised a few eyebrows before going on to give a compelling case. David is sure that we are moving into a third wave of nickel in the Kambalda region. The first was the boom that put Kambalda on the map in the 60s and 70s.  It wasn’t until the 90s, when WMC divested themselves of the mines in the same region that the second wave occurred.  He believes that 2020 is the start of the third wave and Mincor will be well positioned to make the most of it.

They currently have an ore reserve of ~71,000t of contained nickel, they are fully funded to production and have appointed Pit N Portal as their mining contractor. The company has some exciting prospects with Cassini emerging as a major site for them. The Cassini Main site has a mineral resources of1.5Mt @ 4.0% Ni for 58.7kt of contained nickel and Ore Reserves of 1.2Mt @ 3.3% Ni for 40.1kt of contained nickel.

The newly discovered Cassini North site is showing a lot of promise with an Intercept of 2.5m at 6.6% Ni from the first hole.  David believes that it will be very similar to Cassini Main when fully explored.

David got excited when he spoke of the “Golden Mile” which is untested ground between the Durkin North and Long sites. This ground is now controlled by Mincor and David is keen to explore this ground that has yet to be explored and sits between two very lucrative sites.

As you would expect, David was very bullish on Mincor’s prospects, but this is based on his belief that nickel is about to shine again.  With low production costs and a rising nickel price, maybe it is Mincor’s time to have some time in the sun.

Bardoc Gold:

CEO Rob Ryan outlined Bardoc’s operations 40 kilometres North of Kalgoorlie. They currently have a 3Moz resource, a pre-feasibility study completed earlier this year and are well funded with AU$30M cash in bank.

Bardoc have pulled together a series of small projects that now come under one banner. It is anticipated that at current resources they have a mine life of eight years with a production target of 1.02Mozs.  A low cost of production will make the mine a lucrative money spinner for the company.  The plan is to sell 50% of the gold as a concentrate and the remainder in Dore from their Aphrodite.

Bardoc is sitting on ground that is ripe for exploration as there has been insignificant drilling carried out in the area.  This will see the resource grow and a low cost operation could be a going concern for many years to come.

Ramelius Resources.

It seems to be the year for records for this miner.  Production up 17% to 230koz.  Record net profit up $20% to A$113M.  The return to shareholder in dividends doubling from 1c to 2c and the company is now on the ASX200 bourse.

Ramelius is currently operating at about A$1,250 per Oz across its sites after working hard to get their cost management to a satisfactory level.  They have a series of mines around the Mt Magnet area including Vivien, Penny , Galaxy and Morning Star.  The Penny mine has proven to be a high grade resource with average grade of 15g/t.

These are complimented by the Edna May plant at Westonia in the wheatbelt.  Gold from Marda Gold and Edna May mine currently feed this plant.  Tampia mine will be up and running soon with long lead items ordered.  Meanwhile, Symes Find which is nearby is being drilled to prove up resources.

This is a snapshot of what occurred on day one of Diggers and we look forward to bringing you more valuable information from those presenting on day two.

Posted on

Morning News Bites – September 17

Morning News Bites for September 17. The ASX has opened weaker as Fortescue, Commonwealth Bank and Afterpay weigh on the index, Victoria reports lowest COVID-19 cases in 2 months as NSW eases border restrictions for regional communities. 

Mincor’s Board approves development of the Kambalda Nickel Operations. The announcement of a Final Investment Decision for the planned re-commencement of nickel mining at Kambalda by Mincor is supported by a Credit Approved Terms Sheet which has been agreed with two Tier-1 international banks to provide a secured $55 million project finance facility. The facility, together with the Company’s existing cash reserves of more than $100 million, will allow Mincor to efficiently execute the delivery of its nickel restart plan in line with the Definitive Feasibility Study announced in March 2020. Pit N Portal has 60 calendar days to plan and mobilise for commencement of the contract. There are already several Pit N Portal personnel on site following the commencement of an early works program. Mincor’s Managing Director, David Southam commented, saying “It is a great honour to be announcing a Final Investment Decision which heralds Mincor’s return to nickel mining in Kambalda after a hiatus of some four years. “We are now on the cusp of realising our vision to resume profitable and sustainable nickel sulphide mining in the Kambalda district, and to do so in an environmentally responsible and ethical manner that will see this great nickel province return to the forefront of Class-1 nickel production globally.”

Macarthur Minerals Limited informed shareholders that Fe Limited has elected not to earn-in on a 25% Stage 1 Interest in Macarthur Lithium Pty Ltd’s gold and lithium tenements in the Pilbara region of Western Australia, pursuant to the Option Agreement executed between the parties in 2019. Following FEL’s decision, the parties have finalised arrangements for the orderly close-out of the joint venture, with effect from 15 September 2020. Cameron McCall, President and Executive Chairman of Macarthur Minerals commented, saying “Macarthur and FEL have enjoyed working with Fe Limited over the last 12 months. Macarthur continues to retain 26,666,667 shares in FEL and the Company wishes FEL well.”

Torian Resources Limited provided an update on its planned drilling program at the Mt Stirling Gold Project. A review of this area has recently been undertaken resulting in a number of historical gold-in-soil anomalies being uncovered. Up to 15,000m drill campaign to commence in the coming days with new Diorite East Prospect on Diorite Block the initial target. Subsequently, Mt Stirling Block drilling to recommence to test the depth and strike of existing Inferred Resource at Mt Stirling (33,900oz @ 1.45 g/t Au) & define extensions to Mt Stirling Well (16,000oz @ 2.01g/t Au). Phase 1 drilling has demonstrated Mt Stirling Project as a potentially large gold system with ore grade Au now intercepted over 100m below previous drilling and
extends over 1,000m strike length. This will be followed by drilling on the Mt Stirling Block and the main section of the Diorite Block where excellent high-grade gold results have been returned from soils and rock chip samples.

Hastings Technology Metals Limited, announced the first set of results from the 2020 Exploration Drilling Program, concentrated in the Fraser’s area. High-grade and shallow intersections from Yangibana’s highest grade deposit extensional drilling and have confirmed the company’s conceptual modelling for a large coherent zone extending from Fraser’s in the south to Bald Hill in the north, a distance of 7-8 kilometres, with efforts to rapidly expand and define mineralisation in the newly interpreted and discovered mineralised zones. High-grade and shallow intersections from extensional drilling included, 4m @ 1.31% from 4m, 4m @ 1.24% from 11m and 5m @ 1.28% from 52m.

New Ni-CuCo targets have been defined and validated at the Carr Boyd Nickel Project for Estrella Resources Limited. A geophysical survey is scheduled to commence in the coming weeks over the newly identified target areas. Carr Boyd was the first magmatic hosted style of nickel deposit discovered and mined in WA. It was discovered an the late 1960’s and produced 202, 110t of ore at an average grade of 1.43% Ni and 0.46% Cu between 1973-1977. Drill testing is set to commence once the geophysical survey is completed and targets defined.

Posted on

Morning News Bites – September 9

In Today’s Morning News Bites for September 9. BHP conforms to hard borders and aims to hire from WA only and Oxford COVID-19 vaccine trial on hold over ‘potentially unexplained illness’. 

Western Australian nickel company St George Mining Limited is pleased to announce further strong drill results at its flagship Mt Alexander Project, located in the north-eastern Goldfields. Multiple intersections of mineralised mafic-ultramafic units across a 4km-long east-west strike of the Cathedrals Belt with a target horizon open to the east and west. Outstanding potential for the discovery of further nickel-copper sulphide deposits along strike to the east and west of these drill holes as well as up-dip and down-dip of the mineralised intercepts.

Lithium Australia announces its Share Purchase Plan, which launched on 12 August 2020, closed on 7 September 2020 with applications for $4.5 million. Managing Director Adrian Griffin commented, saying “We are very pleased that our shareholders backed the Company’s vision of sustainability in the energy metals space. The additional funds raised will allow all debt to be retired, improving the Company’s balance sheet and accelerating the expansion of Envirostream, our battery recycling subsidiary.”

Mincor Resources NL report highgrade massive and matrix nickel sulphide mineralisation at its Cassini North prospect, located 700m to the north of its cornerstone Cassini Main deposit at Kambalda, Western Australia. This is the first diamond hole drilled at Cassini North following a recent reassessment and geological re-modelling of the area completed by Mincor’s exploration team. MDD350 returned a significant intercept of 2.5m @ 6.6% Ni (including a higher-grade core of 2.0m @ 7.7% Ni), comprising a mix of high tenor massive and matrix nickel sulphides. Mincor’s Managing Director David Southam said, “This is a really exciting development which stems directly from the systematic approach which the geology team has adopted to nickel sulphide exploration.”

The Hamilton Copper Project in north-west Queensland has been successfully completed with a total of seven holes for 2,098m drilled under AusQuest Limited Strategic Alliance Agreement with South32. The drilling program has provided an approximate 500m spatial coverage around earlier drillholes, which provided strong indications of alteration
and the potential for nearby copper mineralisation. Managing Director, Graeme Drew, said the successful completion of the Hamilton drilling program was pleasing, particularly given that travel restrictions are still in
place due to COVID-19. “We are now eagerly awaiting assay results so we can identify potential ‘vectors to ore’, given that the holes were drilled so far apart to cover the large scale of the prospect,” he said.

Cyprium Metals Limited has provided an update, announcing granting of the mining lease at the Cue Copper Project, which replaces the Hollandaire exploration tenement and a portion of the Rapier exploration tenement. Cyprium has applied for exploration tenements to the west and east of the Nanadie Well CopperGold Project, to expand our regional presence in the area and increase the projects exploration prospectivity. The Nanadie Well Copper-Gold Project also has the Stark Cu-Ni-PGE prospect along with a number of drill ready targets that offer excellent exploration upside. Executive Director Barry Cahill commented, saying “We are pleased that the mining lease has been granted to remove any uncertainty over the timing of when mining operations could potentially commence, following the successful completion of favourable Cue Copper Project scoping and feasibility studies.