TSX-V-listed Noble Mineral Exploration has announced that it will create a new nickel company – Canada Nickel – to consolidate and own the Crawford nickel/cobalt sulphide project, in Ontario.
Noble has also committed C$5-million in financing to Canada Nickel to fund the cost of the project consolidation and to allow the company to execute the next phase of drilling and metallurgical work.
Mark Selby, the former CEO of RNC Minerals, which is developing the Dumont nickel/cobalt project in Canada, will lead the new company as chairperson and CEO.
Selby, who is recognised as a leading authority on the nickel market, has described the timing of the Crawford discovery as “excellent”.
“We are in a robust nickel market increasingly driven by demand for nickel from the electric vehicle market, which will require new nickel projects to be built over the coming decade,” he said in a media statement this week.
Noble president and CEO Vance White said that the Crawford project was one of the few nickel discoveries in many years with large scale potential.
Four holes, totalling 1 818 m, of a recent drilling programme have intersected multi-hundred metre intervals of serpentinised dunite with persistent nickel values, with two holes ending in mineralisation. Hole CR18-01 intersected 558 m of 0.26% nickel and 0.013% (127 ppm) cobalt, hole CR18-03 intersected 318 m of 0.25% nickel and 0.013% (126 ppm) cobalt and hole CR18-04 intersected 208.5 m of 0.32% nickel and 0.013% (135 ppm) cobalt.
TSX-V-listed Spruce Ridge and certain private investors have agreed to relinquish its interest in the Crawford joint venture for cash and shares in Canada Nickel.