I think the minimum a triple is bang on as NN called. Eagle 1 was 225 Meter thick, now extended by new holes but now we have sections from 350 to 550 and from 750 to 950. Assuming grade is similar we have triple the thickness. Eagle 1 was always viewed as ultra-rich ie very high grade but small in size. When one looks at the Voisy Bay deposits, the ovoid was about 31M tons but was dwarfed by what lied at depth. Hopefully, this will turn out the same in our case and X and Y will turn out to be bigger at depth then at the Eagle 1 level and we will have a deposit worthy of mining!
The other nice thing is that we are not closed at depth and a new drill will have to be brought in to see if we keep going past 950m. The downside to this is we will have to go with an underground set up, no open pit mining. However, I believe that this is going to work out better anyways as it will help with water issues as an open pit mine in a flat, low land area like Eagle 1 can be an issue. Now with underground operations, we should be better able to keep the water out and at a cheaper price which will offset some of the expenses of underground mining vis-a-vis open pit.
The big question is are we going to cross that critical tonnage issue to justify the infrastructure. If and when we cross this threshold (I think we are there with this new hit) and a mine becomes feasible, this will be one of the cheapest source of nickel anywhere in the world mainly because of the ultra high grade and the fact that it is a sulfide deposit and not a laterite one. So whoever mines this will have one of the best profit margins in the world for producing nickel. The grades at VB were a little more than half of what we seem to be finding and they projected producing nickel at something like $1.38 per pound. I am sure the cost ended up much higher but how profitable would we be at that price even with nickel at $6 a pound.
Right now, nickel inventories are high but more and more production is being shut in and with Sudbury shutting down, possibly for an extended period of time, I do not believe it will take too long to eat into those inventories and the price of nickel will again climb over $10 by the time we start to mine this which will probably be in no less than 2 years when the world economy is at least normalizing by then! Our timing might just turn out to be perfect!
Anyone with thoughts on wether the 750-950 part will be better/worse/the same as the 350-550 part?
Come on Wes, give us some assays!!
Glorieux
