Ursa Major Minerals has announced positive drill results at the east pit of its Shakespeare Mine, just a day after announcing it would scale back production at its west pit until metal prices improve.
The nickel, copper, platinum and palladium operation is located 70 km west of Sudbury.
On Tuesday, Ursa announced it was limiting Shakespeare's operations to the crushing of existing ore, ore sampling, and trucking operations “as a consequence of reduced prices for base metals.”
The company plans to ship about 8,000 tonnes of ore in December, and said it would review resuming mining in the new year “based on a revised mining plan and metal price outlook.”
"The past year has presented a challenging economic environment with weaker base metal prices than anticipated, and we have deferred the development of the East Pit in anticipation of stronger metal prices in the first half of next year,” Richard Sutcliffe, URSA Major Minerals' president and CEO, said in a news release.
“Being an open-pit, direct-shipping operation with contracted mining we have the flexibility to modify our operational plan as a result of the current low metal price environment. The current processing contract with Xstrata Nickel expires December 31, 2011, and discussions regarding a new processing agreement are ongoing."
On Wednesday, Ursa issued another release, this time indicating that drilling at its east pit has confirmed near-surface mineralization with “significantly higher grade than the material currently being mind from the Shakespeare west pit.”
Highlights include hole U3-127 which intersected 83.7 metres grading 0.45 per cent nickel, 0.53 per cent copper, 0.024 per cent cobalt, and 1.15 g/t precious metals. Hole U3-131 intersected 64.2 meters grading 0.43 per cent nickel, 0.51 per cent copper, 0.025 per cent cobalt and 1.21 g/t precious metals.
Sutcliffe said the higher grade mineralization is encouraging and an improvement over grades in the west pit.
“We are currently developing a mining plan for the Shakespeare east deposit and will provide a schedule and development plan early in 2012,” he said.
.jpeg;w=120;h=80;mode=crop)
