Wyloo Metals has approved a $4.9 million drill program to explore the West Raglan project in northern Quebec’s Nunavik region as part of its earn-in agreement with Orford Mining (TSXV: ORM).
Wyloo, run by Australian billionaire Andrew Forest, aims to drill about 2,500 to 3,000 metres at West Raglan this year and will focus on the Frontier, Beverly and Boomerang zones. Last year Orford identified regions in these zones through ground geophysical surveys that it believes could contain “high grade nickel sulfide sources.”
“The current very buoyant nickel, copper and palladium prices coupled with a $4.9 million commitment by Wyloo … should make for a very exciting summer,” David Christie, Orford’s CEO said in a press release. “The West Raglan project is one of the few underexplored high grade nickel sulphide projects in the world.”
Wyloo Metals, one of Australia’s largest private companies, has made a big push into nickel. In December it managed to outbid BHP (NYSE: BHP; LSE: BHP; ASX: BHP) in the race to acquire Canadian junior Noront Resources (TSXV: NOT), which owns early-stage nickel and copper deposits in northern Ontario’s Ring of Fire region. The acquisition is expected to close on March 15 after a shareholder vote.
Under Wyloo’s option to earn up to an 80% stake in the West Raglan project, it must spend $25 million on exploration over seven years. Since the agreement was signed early last year Wyloo has spent about $1.7 million.
The 70,700-hectare project is situated next to Glencore’s (LSE: GLEN) Raglan mine, about 95 km south of the northern village of Salluit.
Historical exploration at the West Raglan property, has identified “six significant discoveries,” Orford says.
“The Frontier Zone contains five high grade nickel-copper-platinum group metal (PGM) mineralized lens clusters over a 2,500-meter strike with grades in the range of 2-3% nickel, 1% copper and more than two grams per tonne PGM,” the company stated.
The goal of the 2021 program, which used “very sensitive” Squid sensors, was to identify targets at Frontier and other parts of the West Raglan property and identified 72 potential nickel sulphide targets. Ten to twelve of the “highest priority responses” will be tested during the exploration program, Orford said.
At presstime in Toronto, Orford Mining was trading at 16¢ per share within a 52-week trading range of 13¢ and 27¢. The company has 149 million common shares outstanding for a market cap of $23.9 million.
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