Duketon Project
Duketon Nickel
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 102,500 tonnes of nickel, 14,200 tonnes of copper and 255,000 ounces of PGE's.
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 on the basal contact of the komatiite ultramafic flow.
The updated JORC Mineral Resource, completed in 2022, stands at 2.77MT @ 3.27% NiEq, containing 56,300 nickel tonnes, 11,800 copper tonnes and 229,000 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, updated in 2022, is 46,300t Nickel, 2340t Copper and 25,700oz Platinum and Palladium. C2 is open at depth and along strike.
