By ANDREW WAREING
There are many more steps to be taken by Falconbridge Ltd.’s geologists before development of the Nickel Rim South property can become a full-fledged mine.
“We are in the midst of a geotechnical drilling program” as part of pre-feasibility assessment for the digging of an exploratory shaft, says Mike Welch, Falconbridge’s manager of geology in Sudbury.
Welch says that the work being done establishes several critical criteria before further exploration work can be done underground. It is part of a careful, multi-step capital request process adopted by Falconbridge since its integration with Noranda.
“It’s not like the old days when we used to say, ‘Here’s the project, it’s going to cost us $500 million, please give us the money.’ Now, we have to do it in a series of steps,” he says.
The site, located two kilometres north of the Greater Sudbury Airport, is being looked at because of the discovery nearly two years ago of high grades of nickel, copper and platinum-group metals.
Current data indicates 3.8 million tonnes of ore in the footwall zone consisting of 1.7 per cent nickel,
5.1 per cent copper, 0.02 per cent cobalt, 2.3 grams per tonne of gold, 3.3 grams per tonne of platinum and 3.8 grams per tonne of palladium.
In the contact zone, there is an estimated 2.3 million tonnes of ore with 1.7 per cent nickel, 0.9 per cent nickel, 0.04 of cobalt with .2 grams per tonne of gold and 0.5 grams per tonne each of platinum and palladium.
“These are inferred resources, which is the lowest class in the confidence level, but we are confident in that data,” says Welch. “The deposit has a real upside potential for growth.”
He says the report on the geotechnical drilling and the pre-feasibility of the shaft is due to the audit committee in July or August, which it is hoped, based on the data, will approve a feasibility study on the shaft. Feasibility studies of the shaft, including how the shaft itself will be built, will likely be ready for approval next spring.
“It’s a rigorous and disciplined process. And it’s a lot of money so you’ve got to make sure you do it
right. Too many mistakes have been made in the past,” says Welch.
