Photo by: Bloomberg
PERTH (miningweekly.com) – Nickel miner Western Areas would spend about A$20-million on exploration over the 2015 financial year, MD and CEO Dan Lougher said on Thursday.
Speaking at the Paydirt Nickel conference, in Perth, he said Western Areas would spend about two-thirds of this budget at its Forrestania tenements, in Western Australia, to define mineralisation between the Spotted Quoll and Flying Fox mines.
Lougher said that Western Areas was currently assessing the possibility of increasing the footprint of the Spotted Quoll operations, or alternatively establishing a new mine at the Sunrise or New Morning orebodies.
“We still have to finish this story, and there is a lot of nickel still in this 800 m strike channel. There is a lot of work to be done still.”
Lougher pointed out, however, that drilling at the tenements would be technically challenging, as drilling would be conducted at the 1 000 m level, which would be time consuming and costly.
“Maybe, with the forward looking price lifting in nickel, we can develop into this,” Lougher said.
Western Areas owns some 900 km2 of tenement package in the Forrestania area, which hosts its two producing mines, and is currently estimated to host some 450 000 t of nickel, valued at around A$8-billion.
“This belt is the heartland of Western Areas and we will continue to spend money on it,” Lougher said.
During the full-year ended June, Western Areas produced 598 959 t of ore, at an average grade of 4.8% nickel for 28 686 t of nickel contained, which was 1 686 t ahead of the firm’s guidance.