Fort St. James Nickel has reported that it is developing a mine model for the Kilometer 26 nickel project, which is situated north of Fort St. James’ community in central British Columbia.
The mine model is applying comparable process technology and economies of scale, as presently used at other low grade copper porphyry deposits located in British Columbia. It is believed that a mine may be developed by adopting the same processes as an open pit copper mine, except for the floatation circuit in the mine mill.
Imperial Metals had filed its technical report on February 14, 2012 that highlights the company’s schedule to build and operate the Red Chris copper/gold deposit, which lies in Northern British Columbia. Imperial Metals expects that the capital expenditure required for building a mine of 30,000 t per day capacity will be 444 million dollars, with a further operating expenditure of $9.96 per t of processed ore.
Fresh drilling at the Kilometer 26 nickel project has verified that a magnetic anomaly shows an ultramafic body that is mineralized with a low grade sulphide, silicate and alloy nickel. So far, a 1680 x 400 m region of this feature has been drill tested with the entire holes beginning and ending in mineralized serpentinite. Furthermore, initial metallurgical analysis has validated that majority of the mineralization contains pentlandite.
Among the six holes, four include nickel intercepts of 0.20% to 0.24% total nickel with sulphide nickel at 0.10% to 0.15% nickel, respectively. Additionally, the lack of non-nickel bearing sulphides in the Kilometer 26 project is a critical factor in making the project concept practical, because such factors can weaken the resulting sulphide concentrate.
The company conducted an initial metallurgical work at Kilometer 26, which indicates that the concentrate may grade 35% nickel along with a little cobalt, making it an attractive option to the nickel concentrate market. Similar ideas to advance bulk tonnage nickel deposits are being planned at Royal Nickels Dumont project located in Quebec.
Low altitude combined with excellent access makes the Kilometre 26 property suitable for reconnaissance campaigns all year round. The property can be accessed through an arterial logging road.
Source: http://www.fortstjamesnickel.com/