Canada Nickel has surpassed the 18-million-tonne mark in total nickel resources in the Timmins area after the company released mineral estimates for two more deposits this week.
The aspiring Toronto mine developer posted first-time estimates for its Mann Central and Texmont nickel sulphide projects, 40 kilometres northeast and 36 kilometres south of the city, respectively.
Canada Nickel is pitching itself as a potential district-scale miner with a series of low-grade, but large-tonnage mining prospects. Mann Central and Texmont are, for the most part, no different. The company said what it has in the ground is on par with Sudbury's 19-million-tonne nickel endowment.
Mann Central holds 520,000 million tonnes of nickel in the indicated category, grading 0.22 per cent, with 1.15 million tonnes on the inferred side at a grade of 0.21 per cent.
The difference between indicated and inferred resources is the degree of confidence in the amount of minerals in the ground, with indicated being the higher category and inferred being the lower. Shifting a resource from inferred to indicated means using tighter spacing between drill holes as the method to gather more data on the size and grade of a deposit.
Texmont contains a measured and indicated of 1.69 million tonnes of 0.71 per cent nickel, including 248,000 tonnes of slightly higher grade nickel at 1.03 per cent. Canada Nickel acquired this property in 2022. It was a former producing nickel mine that operated only briefly between 1971 and 1972. Canada Nickel believed there was high-grade material within the deposit that could be extracted with an open-pit operation.
To date, Canada Nickel has published resources for six of its properties in the Timmins area, amounting to a total of 18.7 million tonnes of nickel with 9.2 million tonnes in the measured and indicated categories, and 9.5 million tonnes inferred.
Estimates for three more deposits are coming out by year’s end.
In a news release, Canada Nickel CEO Mark Selby said they’re excited by the growing scale of nickel potential in what they’re calling the Timmins Nickel District.
“Mann Central is a mineral resource with significant scale and considerable potential for further testing in the future. Texmont, though a smaller target, has delivered strong results with meaningful quantities of higher grade nickel.”
Canada Nickel’s most advanced project is Crawford, a proposed open-pit nickel mine north of the city. The company expects to snag a key federal permit this fall after which it expects to make a construction decision to proceed with the more than $2-billion project.
