Hopes for new nickel mine
ST George Mining claims a raft of new nickel sulphide discoveries in central WA are sufficient to warrant a level of confidence that the ore body will emerge as a new Australian nickel mine.
The development of any such new mine at Leonora comes at a time the metal is enjoying a rebound in both demand and price.
Addressing the Paydirt 2019 Australian Nickel Conference in Perth, St George’s executive chairman John Prineas said nickel tops the list of the “endangered” species as far as battery components go for the electric vehicle and new era energy storage markets.
“Demand from the battery market as well as traditional stainless-steel users continues to rise, resulting in plummeting stockpiles of nickel in 2019,” he said.
“This has underpinned recent London Metal Exchange quotes for three-month nickel at US$17,605/t or about US$8/lb, putting the current price at close to fiveyear highs.
“That strengthening price has also reinforced market recognition that highgrade nickel sulphide deposits are scarce, and that new discoveries are highly prized.
“They are among the factors that are giving St George optimism that our Mt Alexander nickel project in WA’s goldfields sits now as one of the best and most advanced high-grade nickel sulphide discoveries among ASX-listed explorers.”
Mr Prineas said that with high-grade mineralisation now established over a 5.5km strike of the east-west oriented Cathedrals Belt at Mt Alexander, the company was increasingly confident of the potential to develop a potential mining operation at this project.
St George continues to deliver successful exploration results at Mt Alexander, not far from BHP’s Nickel West world class mines in the Agnew-Wiluna Belt.
The project’s Radar prospect was confirmed as a fourth nickel sulphide discovery at Mt Alexander when assays from maiden drilling there returned best intercepts of 6m at 2.14pc nickel, 0.74pc copper and 1.62g/t platinum group metals from a shallow depth of just 46m.
This latest discovery adds to the project’s other nearby discoveries at Stricklands, Cathedrals and Investigators, where resource definition drilling is underway.
Mr Prineas said some analysts were already speculating that the mineral inventory discovered so far at Mt Alexander could tally up to 50,000t of contained nickel equivalent, with potential to discover more mineralisation with ongoing exploration.
St George has initiated early stage scoping studies to support a mining proposal and continues to work towards a maiden resource for Mt Alexander.