PERTH (miningweekly.com) – Junior Rox Resources will pay A$25 000 and issue 7.4-million of its shares to fellow listed Falcon Minerals, to gain hold of the Collurabbie nickel project, some 70 km east of the company’s Fisher East nickel sulphide and Mt Fisher gold projects.

The Collurabbie project consists of two exploration licences covering 63.1 km² and has been the subject of more than a decade’s worth of exploration.

“The nickel sulphide discovery at Collurabbie was the talk of the town a few years ago, but lack of exploration during and since the global financial crisis means the opportunity to define more extensive mineralisation there is still extremely attractive,” said Rox MD Ian Mulholland.

“The project fits nicely with our Fisher East nickel sulphide project, and being within 70 km means that any mineral resource we define at Collurabbie can be easily trucked to Fisher East for processing should that development occur.”

The sale was subject to a number of conditions, including shareholder and regulatory approval, and royalty assignments.

Mulholland has meanwhile told delegates at the Paydirt Nickel Conference, in Perth, that it could be mining first ore at the Fisher East project within nine months of taking a decision to mine.

The project hosts an initial resource of 4.2-million tonnes, grading 1.9% nickel for 78 000 t of contained nickel. Aircore drilling of other nearby targets has identified fresh nickel sulphides with the potential to double the project’s total resource base.

“Fisher East has strong exploration potential over something like a 25 kilometre strike length and has already yielded four new deposit discoveries – Camelwood, Cannonball, Musket and Sabre,” Mulholland said.

“Significantly, these orebodies are open at depth and along strike, with our scoping study already providing scope for two development options – toll milling by trucking ore to a nearby mill, or building our own 600 000 t/y style processing plant and trucking the concentrate to market.”