FPX Nickel Corp revealed that drilling programs at its flagship Decar Nickel District property in British Columbia had been completed, with ten holes, for 2,710 meters (m), sunk at the Baptiste deposit.
Here, the work was designed to upgrade the near-surface inferred resources to the higher confidence indicated category ahead of an initial preliminary feasibility study.
Elsewhere, at the project's Van target, 2,689m of drilling in nine widely-spaced diamond drill holes was completed in a bid to test the sub-surface potential for mineralization in areas below and adjacent to prospective samples of outcropping bedrock.
The size of Van defined by outcrop sampling is comparable to the Baptiste deposit, which measures 3.2 km along strike with widths of up to 1,080m, FPX noted.
READ: FPX Nickel says summer drill program now underway at Decar Nickel District property
Assays from both the Van and Baptiste programs are pending, with the first results expected in October.
The company's Decar Nickel District claims cover 245 km2 of the Mount Sidney Williams ultramafic/ophiolite complex and this latest drilling marks the most active campaign at the property since 2012.
Of the four targets in the Decar Nickel District, the Baptiste deposit, which was initially the most accessible and had the biggest known surface footprint, has been the focus of diamond drilling since 2010, with a total of 82 holes and over 31,000 meters of drilling completed.
The Sid target was tested with two holes in 2010 and the B target had a single hole drilled in 2011. All three holes intersected nickel-iron alloy mineralization over wide intervals with DTR nickel grades comparable to the Baptiste deposit. The Van target was not drill-tested at that time as rock exposure was very poor prior to more recent logging activity.
According to a NI 43-101 resource estimate released in 2020, Baptiste contains an indicated resource of 1.996 billion tonnes at an average grade of 0.122% Davis Tube Recoverable (DTR) nickel and 593 million tonnes in the inferred category.
A 2020 Preliminary Economic Assessment (PEA) showed a 35-year mine life and a pre-tax net present (NPV) value of US$2.93 billion with a pre-tax pay-back period of 3.5 years. Around 89% of mineralization was classified in the indicated category and 11% in inferred category.
Contact the writer at giles@proactiveinvestors.com