Mincor Resources replenishes 52 per cent of 2013 nickel production

THE DRILL SERGEANT: Mincor Resources (ASX: MCR) has been able to replenish Ore Reserves at the company’s Kambalda nickel operations in Western Australia.

The company has announced an updated Mineral Resource and Ore Reserve Statement showing drilling completed throughout the year has 52 per cent of all the nickel it mined during the 2013 financial year.

Mincor said most of the additions come from drilling programs it completed at the company’s Miitel nickel mine.

Mincor’s updated Ore Reserve and Mineral Resource inventory now stands at:

Total Ore Reserves: 673,000 tonnes at 3.2 per cent nickel for 21,300 tonnes nickel-in-ore; and

Total Mineral Resources: 3,557,000 tonnes at 3.7 per cent nickel for 117,000 tonnes nickel-in-ore.

 

Cumulative nickel production and Year-End Reserves 2001-2013. Source: Company announcement

 

The N30 orebody at South Miitel also kicked in to deliver an initial Ore Reserve of 208,000 tonnes at 2.6 per cent nickel for 5,370 tonnes of contained nickel.

Mincor explained that after depleting Miitel’s June 2012 Ore Reserve for production during the past year, this represents a doubling of the Ore Reserve for Miitel, adding approximately two years to its mine life.

Elsewhere at South Miitel, the N31 and N32 Mineral Resources remain outside Ore Reserves due to insufficient drill density, as well as the emerging new discovery known as the N34.

Mincor indicated however, these are likely to become important targets for the coming year with one, possibly two underground drill rigs to be used for most of the year to infill these Resources and, if viable, convert them to Ore Reserves.

Mincor also intends mobilising a surface diamond drilling rig in order to implement a deep-drilling step-out strategy, as it did at South Miitel during 2009-11.

This will involve deep diamond drilling of parent and daughter wedge holes, aimed at defining a further five years of potential reserves at South Miitel, beyond current Ore Reserves.

The company was not able to add to Ore Reserves at Mariners during the year due to a lack of drilling, which it put down to a lack of suitable underground drill positions.

Mincor explained it has now advanced the Mariners decline to the point where good drill positions have become available, and two drill rigs are currently drilling.

Mincor said the underground and surface drilling programs at both the Miitel and Mariners operations, combined with its nearby gold targets meant the company was entering a phase of focused exploration activity at Kambalda.

“We did well during 2013 to replenish more than half of our nickel production in what was a fairly challenging period with a constrained budget and limited drilling positions at Mariners,” Mincor Resources managing director David Moore said in the company’s announcement to the Australian Securities Exchange.

“The updated Mineral Resource and Ore Reserve position represents a creditable result and lays the foundations for an expanded drilling program in the coming year, aimed at sketching out, at least in ‘rough draft’, another five years of production beyond our current notional two-year mine life.”