Nickel Creek boosts metal estimate by nearly a third to 2.5 billion pounds at Yukon project
Nickel Creek Platinum (TSX: NCP; US-OTC: NCPCF) says a new resource estimate increases metal by almost a third at its Nickel Shaw project in southwest Yukon.
Contained nickel in the measured and indicated resource categories rose 31% to 2.47 billion lb., Toronto-based Nickel Creek said in a news release on Thursday. The measured resource also increased by 31%, to 122.4 million tonnes, while the indicated resource jumped by 37% to 314.3 million tonnes.
The update is “an important milestone in the path towards developing a large, long-life operation,” Nickel Creek president and CEO Stuart Harshaw said in the release. It “puts us in excellent position for the delivery of our prefeasibility study in the third quarter of 2023.”
Grades at the Nickel Shaw project, on the Alaska Highway about 320 km northwest of Whitehorse, were largely unchanged, the company said. The measured and indicated resource totaled 436.7 million tonnes grading 0.26% nickel, 0.13% copper, 0.01% cobalt, 0.23 gram palladium per tonne, 0.22 gram platinum and 0.04 gram gold.
The update was based on results from eight holes drilled last year totalling 1,710 metres, along with new metal pricing and revised pit constraints, the company said. Metallurgical tests completed on core samples collected in 2022 helped refine the recovery formula, it added.
The estimate shows the measured and indicated resource contains 2.47 billion lb. nickel, 1.28 billion lb. copper, 137 million lb. cobalt, 3.29 million oz. palladium, 3.14 million oz. platinum and 545,000 oz. gold.
It updates a 2018 technical report showing Nickel Shaw with measured and indicated resources of 323.4 million tonnes grading 0.26% nickel, 0.16% copper and 0.015% cobalt, 0.25 gram per tonne platinum, 0.25 gram palladium and 0.04 gram gold. Contained metal was 1.8 billion lb. nickel, 1.1 billion lb. copper, 107 million lb. cobalt, 2.6 million oz. platinum, 2.6 million oz. palladium and 480,000 oz. gold.
The new Nickel Shaw estimate uses prices of US$12.10 per lb. nickel, US$4.45 per lb. copper, US$25.30 per lb. cobalt, US$2,415 per oz. palladium, US$1,150/ per oz. platinum, and US$2,015 per oz. gold.
Shares of Nickel Creek were at 3¢ apiece on Thursday in Toronto, down from 7¢ early this year and in a 52-week window of 2.5¢ and 8.5¢, valuing the company at $13 million.
