Milling tests positive at Shakespeare

Test milling of drill core samples from the Shakespeare copper-nickel project west of Sudbury, Ont., has successfully recovered a bulk copper-nickel concentrate.

The testing, done by SGS-Lakefield Research for project operator Ursa Major Minerals (UMJ-V), found that a concentrate with 22.2% combined copper and nickel could be produced in an open flotation circuit. The circuit recovered 93.5% of the copper but only 68.8% of the nickel.

The samples came from drill holes U3-08 and U3-09, both of which intersected grades of around 0.5% nickel and 0.5% copper, with 0.03% cobalt and some platinum, palladium and gold credits. Platinum recovery in the concentrate was 69%, although the circuit was not optimized to recover precious metals.

Ursa Major holds 75% of the Shakespeare property, where it has outlined an indicated resource of 4.9 million tonnes grading 0.43% nickel, 0.43% copper, 0.45 gram palladium, 0.41 gram platinum and 0.22 gram gold per tonne. Falconbridge (FL-T) owns the rest.