PERTH (miningweekly.com) – Mining giant BHP Billiton has sold its West Musgrave nickel project, in Western Australia, to ASX-listed junior Cassini Resources.

The miner had been divesting its noncore assets, and had sold projects in Australia, the US, Canada, South Africa and the UK in the last two years, over several commodities, including petroleum, copper, coal, uranium and diamonds.

Cassini reported on Thursday that the West Musgrave project was a natural acquisition for the company, as the company owned a nearby tenement area and had experience operating in the region.

The West Musgrave project includes the Nebo-Babel nickel/copper sulphide deposit that has a current inferred resource of 446-million tonnes, grading 0.33% nickel and 0.35% copper for 1.47-million tonnes of contained nickel and 1.56-million tonnes of contained copper.

“These are truly significant assets, and it is a great result for Cassini to have been successful in acquiring them,” said Cassini MD Richard Bevan.

“As a smaller company, we can apply a different, innovative approach to these assets, focusing on higher-grade opportunities, with the aim of progressing their development to production as a priority.”

Under the terms of the transaction, Cassini would make a A$250 000 cash payment to BHP, of which 10% had already been paid. The junior would also provide a 2% net smelter royalty on all the net proceeds from future production, as well as a production milestone payment of A$10-million, due 12 months after first production.

“We foresee that a number of significant project milestones are capable of being achieved within the next 6 to 12 months,” Bevan added.

In addition to the Nebo-Babel deposit, the West Musgrave project also includes the Succoth deposit and several early-stage exploration targets.

Cassini would now look to undertake resource definition drilling to infill known higher-grade zones to build a higher-grade subset to the overall Nebo-Babel mineral resource. The outcomes of this programme would determine future development scenarios.