Australia's junior explorers - The ASIA Miner

Papau New Guinea
Maiden Mambare resource exceeds expectations
REGENCY Mines has announced a maiden
JORC resource at its Mambare nickel project
of 95.1 million tonnes. This combined indicated
and inferred resource is graded 0.96% nickel
and 0.08% cobalt with 912,595 tonnes of contained
nickel at a 0.6% nickel cut-off grade.
The maiden resource estimate has exceeded
expectations by thr ee times what the
company had forecast, only represents a very
small part of the licence area and the grades
are better than expected. Independent r esearch
company VSA Capital is also surprised
by the announcement, having estimated
the project to host 30 million tonnes after discussions
with the project manager and site
visits in November 2011.
VSA’s chief executive Andrew Monk says
there is also much scope to increase the project
tonnage as the r esource estimate has
been taken only fr om two areas within the
Mambare site. “This 95 million tonnes is just
36 | ASIA Miner | July/August 2012
the beginning and we expect that further delineation
drilling on the plateau will significantly
increase the resource estimate.”
Five drill rigs completed a 200 hole exploration
program along the North Ridge Extension
Zone last year.
Regency chairman Andrew Bell says, “Our
Mambare project is, we believe, a world-class
resource and will make a world-class project.
With the benefit of the Dir ect Nickel processing
technology, in which we have invested
so much of our money and cr edibility, we
think we can become among the world’s lowcost
large-scale producers.”
He says that to have an estimate at 95 million
tonnes with less than 3% of the plateau
drilled leads the company to believe Mambare
could be one of the world’s largest single
nickel laterite deposits.
Mambare is a joint ventur e with Sydneybased
Direct Nickel (DNI). It is about 120km
Significant assay results from Mt Kare
THE Mt Kare gold and silver project in Papua
New Guinea’s Central Highlands is likely to
become Indochine Mining’ s major priority
after assay results from a further thr ee drill
holes returned very high grade mineralization.
The intersections are among a set to be sent
to Perth for metallurgical test work while assays
for 25 additional holes are still pending.
Highlights of the results include 17.7 metres
@ 100.3 grams/tonne gold and 134
grams/tonne silver from 59 metres including
4 metres @ 420 grams/tonne gold and 170
grams/tonne silver from 67 metres.
Indochine’s chief executive officer Stephen
Promnitz says, “These r esults support our
confidence in the potential of the Mt Kar e
gold/silver project. As each new drill hole
comes in, our confidence is elevated further.”
Mt Kare is one of the largest near-term gold
projects in Papua New Guinea. It is 15km
from one of the world’s biggest gold mines,
Barrick’s 28 million ounce Porgera mine,
which has produced more than 500,000 ounces
of gold each year since 1990. Indochine
says Mt Kar e shares similar geology , ore
types and structures of mineralization to Porgera,
which has established major r oad and
power infrastructure.
Checking core samples from Indochine’s Mt Kare gold and silver project.
After acquiring the project in June 2011, the
company is planning the development of a
large open cut mine to pr oduce up to
150,000 ounces of gold and silver each year.
Ongoing drilling at the site is expected to improve
the quality and increase the current resource
for inclusion in the pre-feasibility study,
which is due for completion by August.
Initial mine plans and scheduling have been
from the deep water port of Oro Bay and covers
242sqkm. Regency invested $6 million
in DNI in 2010-11 to become a significant
shareholder, as the company’s advanced lateritic
tank leaching treatment technology offers
a unique low capital and operating cost
treatment process for both limonites and saprolites.
A $5.4 million pilot plant has been
constructed at Perth in Western Australia to
test DNI’s technology.
“The Direct Nickel processing technology
for lateritic nickels is a disruptive technology
that will change the nickel mining industry .
We intend to be leaders in that change,”
says Andrew Bell.
If the pilot plant is successful on a commercial
scale, the technology will dramatically reduce
the cost of pr ocessing nickel laterite
deposits. The joint ventur e aims to commence
production of an annual 20,000 tonnes
of nickel at Mambare in 2015.
completed with draft optimized pit shells and
basic infrastructure plans. The environmental
impact, social impact and initial tailings studies
are also under way.
Indochine announced an initial 2.1 million
ounce gold equivalent JORC-compliant r esource
estimate for the deposit in January this
year which confirmed the 2007 evaluation of
the gold-silver mineralization at the prospect.