Continental Nickel Tallies Resource At Nachingwea In Tanzania

The Nachingwea nickel sulphide project, about 400 km south of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania, contains an estimated 89 million lbs. of nickel, Continental Nickel (CNI-V, CNKDF-O) says.

Continental owns 70% of the project in a joint venture with IMX Resources(GSMGF-O, IXR-A)of Australia holding the remaining 30%.

Measured and indicated resources stand at 3.08 million tonnes grading 1.31% nickel, 0.24% copper and 0.04% cobalt at a net smelter return cutoff of US$23 per tonne.

At a higher NSR cutoff of US$100 per tonne, measured and indicated resources totalled 1.14 million tonnes grading 2.43% nickel, 0.4% copper and 0.06% cobalt.

The resource estimate is the project’s first, and was based on 179 drill holes totalling 27,000 metres. Six separate, near-surface, sulphide zones (G, H, J, L, M and NAD013) discovered at Ntaka Hill from 2006 to 2007 and delineated in 2008 were used for the calculation.

In most of the zones, the mineralization extends below the bottom of the preliminary pit shells and several zones, including M, L and G, are open up-plunge.

More drilling is needed to determine whether additional near-surface resources exist, but funding shouldn’t be an issue. The company has about $11.7 million in its treasury.

This year, Continental is undertaking a $2.5-million exploration program and will focus on evaluating a number of high-priority regional target areas identified from the airborne VTEM survey of 2007-08.

To date, about 28 anomalies have been identified for further work. Geologic mapping, geochemical sampling and ground TDEM geophysical surveys are scheduled to be completed by September, when a 3,000-metre diamond-drilling program is scheduled to begin.

Nachingwea lies within the Proterozoic Mozambique belt to the southeast of the Archean Tanzanian Craton and is underlain by a mixture of mafic to felsic granulites, gneisses, amphibolites and metasedimentary rocks that have been intruded by young ultramafic to felsic intrusions.

IMX Resources made the greenfield discovery in 2006. Inco was the first company to explore for nickel in the area as early as the 1950s.

At presstime, Continental Nickel was trading at 63¢ per share. The company has a 52-week trading range of 23¢-$2.40 and 30.1 million shares outstanding.