Exploration companies Fjordland and CanAlaska Uranium have announced a letter of intent (LoI) to explore the North Thompson nickel project – a 16 685 ha claim group located 25 km north of the Thompson mine operated by Vale Canada.
TSX-V-listed Fjordland has an option to acquire up to 80% in CanAlaska’s Hunter and Strong properties, part of the North Thompson nickel project.
CanAlaska has been exploring the Thompson nickel belt (TNB) for the past several years and in 2017 commissioned Condor Geophysical Consulting to reprocess historic airborne surveys. This review demonstrated several potential nickel/copper/platinum-group-element (PGE-) exploration targets, 14 in total of which six are considered a priority and that had never been drilled by the former tenure holder, Falconbridge Nickel.
A due diligence carried out in collaboration with Fjordland's significant shareholder, High Power Exploration, confirmed the presence of several robust, near surface exploration targets, as well as identifying additional geophysical targets that require further investigation.
"The North Thompson Nickel Belt project meets Fjordland's long-standing exploration criteria in that the high-quality work done to date clearly demonstrates large scale, drill ready targets in a well-documented geologic setting,” said Fjordland president Richard Atkinson.
He noted that since the start of production in 1961, the Thompson, Birchtree and Pipe deposits had produced more than 150-million of nickel sulphide ore grading 2.32% nickel, 0.16% copper, 0.046% cobalt and 0.83 g/t PGE.
Over three option periods, Fjordland has to commit to a total of $9-million of work, the issuance of 8.5-million shares and cash payments totalling $150 000.
Upon completion of a positive feasibility study Fjordland is obligated to issue a further 10-million shares to CanAlaska. The initial operator will be CanAlaska with Fjordland possessing the option to become operator upon completion of the second option.
The LoI is conditional upon the approvals of Fjordland's and CanAlaska's boards of directors, the execution by March 31 of a definitive option/JV agreement and the conventional regulatory approvals.
The TNB is considered one of the largest nickel camps in the world both in geographic dimension and in terms of historic production, coupled with current reserves/resources.