Drilling should be under way by the second-last week in March, concentrating on the Nico deposit’s central, higher-grade core zone. The targets were recommended by consulting firm Strathcona Mineral Services, which is preparing a new resource estimate on the Nico cobalt-bismuth-gold-copper deposit.
Previous estimates of the measured and indicated resource at Nico, made by SNC-Lavalin in September of last year, ranged from 14.7 million tonnes grading 0.11% cobalt, 0.13% bismuth, 0.04% copper and 0.7 gram gold per tonne, to 39.4 million tonnes grading 0.08% cobalt, 0.1% bismuth, 0.03% copper and 0.4 gram gold. Cutoff grades ranged from 0.12% cobalt equivalent for the smaller resource to 0.06% for the larger.
Fortune has also scheduled holes to test updip from a zone on the eastern end of the deposit, and to look for potential breccia-pipe feeders in areas below the central core. The company also has some untested radiometric and magnetic anomalies, detected in earlier airborne surveys, to drill.
Fortune also reported results of further metallurgical testing at Lakefield Research in Lakefield, Ont. Its most recent work has been on improvements to the bulk flotation design previously developed at Lakefield. Mineralization with relatively high head grades — 0.15% to 0.2% cobalt — can be treated by flotation with a recovery of about 80%, producing a concentrate with 4-5% cobalt.
Other tests by Lakefield showed that the mineralization is not acid-generating, and that tailings from the proposed metallurgical processes carry heavy metals and other deleterious substances at concentrations well below territorial disposal guidelines.
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