Hi Mucker,
good to have someone on this board with 40 years of experience in the nickel mining business.
With this much of insider knowledge, I would like to ask you to clarify your statements in your latest post :
" Grades of 1.2% and 2.4% nickel are not considered as higher grades by anyone in the nickel mining industry. Most established underground nickel mines consider 1% nickel marginal at best."
"Vale in Sudbury have suspended all their deep mining development, and are reassessing these projects because their not sure they can mine them at a profit. These areas have a much higher grade than 2%."
Can you give some specific examples for your statements, because my DD shows that there are not many deposits (at least in Canada), that show average grades much higher than 2% Ni ?
Refering to Noronts latest presentation (p. 18), Eagle 1A ranks quite high in the komatiite deposit comparison with an average Ni grade of 2.12%.
The majority of these deposits would be in the range of 0.5% to 2.0%, some in the range between 2.0% and 3.0% and only a few would be averaging over 3.0%.
My other DD showed, that Eagle 1 with average gades around 2% Nickel is certainly in the "world-class" league of deposits in Canada, as can be seen by the following examples (and has certainly much better by-product valuations (PGE,Cu) AND is starting just below surface (7metres) :
a) Inco: Birchtree, Manitoba: 1,80% Nickel (13,6 Mt)
b) Falconbridge: Onaping-Craig, Sudbury: 1,55% Nickel (23,5 Mt)
c) Falconbridge: Raglan, Quebec: 2,85% Nickel (19 Mt)
d) Falconbridge: Montcalm, Timmins: 1,5% Nickel (7,2 Mt, not in production)
e) Inco, Kelly Lake: 1,77% Nickel (10,5 M)
f) Inco, Copper Cliff South, 830 Ore Body: 1,27% Nickel (2,7 Mt, not in production)
g) Inco, Copper Cliff North,138 Ore Body: 0,9% Nickel (300.000 t, not in production)
h) Creighton (Deep Deposit, >3000m): 81.000 t @ 4,6% Nickel
It would be nice if you could give some more examples that support your statement of grades around 2.0% Ni "NOT being considered higher grades" and "suspended projects with much higher grades than 2.0%" .
Thanks for sharing your knowledge.
FANTOMAS
P.S: Most of the above mentioned examples of mines and projects are mining in depths between 1300 and 3050 METRES (NOT FEET) !
So good to hear that we are at 900 metres (but still in mineralization) !
