www.metallicaminerals.com.au
Metallica Minerals are a multi commodity resource company with major interests in
Nickel-Cobalt
Coal – Energy
Bauxite
Tungsten
Copper-Gold
Since its establishment in 1997 and ASX listing in November 2004, Metallica Minerals (ASX code: ‘MLM’) has maintained a core focus on the sustained development of its flagship NORNICO nickel-cobalt project in northern Queensland, while expanding its business through a complementary series of strategic resource project acquisitions, non-core asset sales, corporate alliances, and cutting-edge technological advances.
Metallica Minerals commence drilling at Greenvale Nickel Project
Metallica Minerals (ASX: MLM) has kicked-off drilling at the 100%-owned newly acquired Greenvale and Lucknow Nickel – Cobalt projects.
The tenements host a remnant resource of 38 million tonnes (Mt) of 0.8% Ni and 0.05% Co.
The company is specifically targeting high grade zones (>1.5% Ni Eq or Ni+2Co) at the historic Greenvale mine site and nearby to the Lucknow deposit in southern portion of Metallica’s flagship NORNICO Ni-Co project northwest of Townsville, Queensland.
An 8,000m Reverse Circulation (RC) Queensland drilling program is planned for around 300 holes, for the project acquired in 2009.
Straits Resources carried out drilling in 2008 at Greenvale. In areas of shallow mineralisation, better drill results returned by Straits included 15m @ 1.69% Ni and 0.03% Co and 24m @ 1.51% Ni and 0.04% Co.
At the Lucknow Nickel – Cobalt deposit, Anaconda Resources (2001) and QNI intersected high nickel and cobalt zones in several holes in the 1970's with results including 16m @ 1.09% Ni and 0.26% Co and 9m @ 0.76% Ni and 0.38% Co.
Drill results will be incorporated in current scoping/prefeasibility study to establish initial NORNICO Stage 1 processing operation at Greenvale.
The proposed NORNICO Stage 1 operation under study is for a 180,000 tpa sized heated atmospheric acid leach operation (AAL) extracting Ni-Co & Sc, sourcing key reagents; acid from Townsville and limestone/lime locally and producing ~ 2,900 t Ni metal or Ni sulphate, ~ 200 t Co sulphide and ~5,000 kg Sc oxide per annum.
A new resource estimate for Greenvale & Lucknow Ni-Co projects will be prepared once RC assay results are available.
An indicative mine schedule will then be prepared for study, sourcing and blending high grade nickel ores from Greenvale, high grade cobalt nickel ores from Lucknow, and high grade cobalt and scandium (a rare earth element/tech metal) ores trucked from the Kokomo deposit in the central NORNICO project area.
