Vancouver — With shares of First Point Minerals (FPX-V, FPOCF-O) rallying about 30% recently, investors seem to approve of plans by the Central American-focused gold explorer to dust off a pair of British Columbia nickel projects.
The company had previously tested metallurgical recoveries from both nickel-iron and nickel sulphide minerals at the large, early stage nickel properties, but only acquired the projects in mid-May.
Bench-scale metallurgical testing on the ultramafic rocks indicated nickel could be recovered by using combined leaching and physical separation processes.
The nickel price has renewed First Point’s interest in the projects; when it initially tested the nickel mineralization, the metal was trading around US$3.50 per lb., making the economics of the projects shaky, but recent nickel prices of more than US$20 per lb. could change that.
The company is compiling results of past work and gearing up for programs of mapping and sampling as well as further metallurgical testing.
First Point has been focused on its Cacamuya gold-silver property in Honduras and the Rio Luna gold project in Nicaragua.
Shares of First Point gained 4 on the news to close at 17.5 apiece on trading volume of almost 1.4 million shares. The stock has a 52-week trading range of 10-38.
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