Duketon Project
The belt has been explored for both gold and nickel since the late 1800’s and total discoveries of this belt stand at over 87,000 tonnes of nickel and 8 Million ounces of gold.
Duketon’s tenement package lies along strike and adjacent to Regis Resources’ landholding including the Rosemont, Garden Well and Moolart Well Gold Mines.
The total JORC compliant nickel resource for the Bulge Area now stands at 87,100 tonnes of nickel, 12,900 tonnes of copper and 231,500 ounces of PGE's.
Duketon Nickel
The Bulge Ultramafic Complex, a folded and thickened sequence of ultramafic, is host to the Rosie and C2 nickel sulphide resources.
Prior to the South Boulder Mines Ltd / Independence Group NL JV only sporadic exploration for nickel had been completed in the Belt, mainly in the 1960’s and 1970’s.
Rosie
The Rosie Deposit was discovered in 2006 by IGO-STB JV. Mineralisation is characterised by massive, matrix, breccia and disseminated Ni-Cu-PGE magmatic sulphides and (should be on) the basal contact of the komatiite ultramafic flow.
The updated JORC Mineral Resource, completed in 2021, stands at 2.56MT @ 3.14% NiEq, containing 49,100 nickel tonnes, 10,600 copper tonnes and 205,000 ounces PGE's and now includes the Nariz mineralisation.
A Scoping Study was completed on the Rosie Nickel Sulphide Project in early 2021. Highlights of the study are:
- A Scoping Study for Duketon's 100% owned Rosie Nickel Project confirms the viability of a mining, trucking and toll treating operation assuming an 8-year mine life.
- NPV5 of -$161M (range $56M to $204M).
- IRR of -54% (range 21% to 66%).
- Pre-tax cashflow of -$223M (range $91M to $278M).
- Pre-production capital cost of -$18M.
- Simple decline and underground mine - minimal surface infrastructure.
- Annual production of approximately 315kt of ore at 2.1% NiEq.
- Resource already situated on a granted mining tenement with ample room for all surface works and infrastructure.
- Metallurgy work shows a positive outcome with high recoveries of nickel, copper and PGE's.
- The exploration strategy is being finalised and will consider three different items: lateral extensions to Rosie, identification of higher-grade areas within the proposed mined areas and additional exploration outside of the Rosie project area.
- Upside opportunities include:
- considering oxide portion of Rosie for recovery of PGE's,
- including C2 Nickel resource as part of an expanded operation that would incorporate an onsite concentrator and be focused on producing concentrates to be sold to a third party or parties.
C2
Discovered in 2006 by IGO-STB JV. The C2 deposit consists of a series of disseminated, blebby and matrix sulphide zones within and proximal to the contacts of the ultramafic complex. Three broad zones of mineralisation have been interpreted. JORC 2012 Mineral Resource estimate is 38,000t Nickel, 2370t Copper and 26,000oz Platinum and Palladium. C2 is open at depth and along strike.
Somerset
The Somerset Nickel Prospect, located 30km north of Laverton, has been identified for its potential to host nickel sulphide mineralisation. Historical regional spaced aircore drilling across the magnetic high has intersected cumulate textured ultramafic and returned anomalous nickel results. The ultramafic unit extends over approximately 7km with interpreted structural repetition of the ultramafic adding another 3km of prospective contact to explore. Possible embayment features can be seen in the ultramafic unit from the magnetics which are targets for nickel sulphides.
Significant Intersections from historical drilling include;
- 12m @ 0.77% Ni & 209 ppm Cu inc. 8m @ 0.94% Ni & 359 ppm Cu
- 10m @ 0.73% Ni & 70 ppm Cu
- 16m @ 0.62% Ni &145 ppm Cu
XRF results from iron rich drill chips collected in the field include;
- 5.84% Ni & 1,607 ppm Cu
- 2.97% Ni & 91 ppm Cu
