Mel deposit better than ever

Nuinsco Resources (NWI-T) has hit good grades at minable widths during its 21-hole , 4,000-metre, drill program focused on the Mel nickel deposit, some 25 km north of Thompson, Manitoba.

Results from this program will be used to update the Mel deposit resource and incorporated into a scoping study. Highlights of the drilling include:

• 5.5 metres grading 2.33% nickel
• 5.4 metres grading 2.11% nickel that includes a 3.0 metre intercept grading 2.54% nickel
• 7.7 metres grading 1.88% nickel that includes a 2.6 metre intercept grading 3.13% nickel
• 3.7 metres grading 2.4% nickel that includes a 1.4 metre intercept grading 2.96% nickel
• 4.3 metres grading 2.08% nickel

One hole was abandoned, and one hole tested a pulse electromagnetic geophysical anomaly 600 metres north of the deposit, intersecting 0.92 metre grading 1.31% nickel. Eleven holes, not listed above, contained intercepts ranging from 1.23 – 2.98% nickel over widths of 1.0 to 7.4 metres.

The Mel property comprises one mineral lease, which surrounds the Mel deposit, and 60 mineral claims, that together cover 155 sq. km. A resource estimate completed in 2000, resulted in an indicated 290,000 tonnes grading 1.7% nickel and an inferred 260,000 tonnes of the same grade to a depth of 230 metres.

The drilling tested the deposit at vertical depths of 90 to 180 metres in areas below known mineralization.

Extensive swamp and overburden mask the local geology, however the property is primarily underlain by garnet-sillimanite-biotite schist interbedded with meta-sediments and minor iron formation of the Lower Pipe formation and intruded by ultramafics. The massive and stringer nickel-sulphides, primarily pyrrhotite, with lesser pentlandite, are concentrated in the ultramafic rocks and their haloes.

Most nickel deposits in the Thompson nickel belt are found in similarly-aged Opswagen group rocks.

The property is under option from Inco (N-T). Nuinsco can earn a 100% interest by spending $6 million by August 2004.