Nickel explorer Estrella Resources has decided to sell its nickel rights over its Spargoville project located approximately 25 kilometres west of Kambalda in WA. After receiving several unsolicited offers the company has engaged Geolithic Geological Services to handle the sale process and it is now planning to concentrate its exploration efforts on the company’s flagship Carr Boyd nickel project.
The Spargoville project area was first discovered by Selcast Exploration in the late 1960’s. Since then, the 1A, 5A, 5B, and 5D deposits have been discovered and developed. Estrella says all these mines have remnant mineralisation left behind.
The company acquired Spargoville via the purchase of WA Nickel that came with a canvas dotted with old mines and the surrounding areas that it was planning to explore using with modern geophysical exploration techniques. In 2018, Estrella completed its maiden drilling program at Spargoville, targeting high grade nickel mineralisation directly beneath the historic 5A open pit and an electro-magnetic target between the old 5A and 5B mines.
Drilling beneath the 5A pit floor returned some pulse quickening high-grade nickel sulphide intercepts with accompanying polymetallic mineralisation. Assay results included 15 metres at a gobsmacking 10.45 per cent nickel, 0.78 per cent copper, 0.20 per cent cobalt, 0.87 grams per tonne palladium and 1.15 g/t platinum from 20m in one hole and 5m at a whopping 11.32 per cent nickel, 0.54 per cent copper, 0.21 per cent cobalt, 0.42 g/t palladium and 0.22 g/t platinum from 61m in another. The first drilling campaign at the 5A deposit exceeded Estrella’s expectations as assay results returned consistently higher numbers than historic drilling.
The maiden mineral resource at Spargoville stands at 127,000 tonnes at 1.9 per cent Ni and 0.15 per cent Cu for a contained nickel metal inventory of 2,370 tonnes. Fortuitously, the mineral resource is shallow with most of the nickel within 100m of surface and amendable to open pit mining.
Commenting on the sale, Estrella Resources Managing Director Chris Daws said: “With a number of unsolicited offers being received and with our exploration programs solely focused on unlocking the Carr Boyd Nickel Project due to exceptional results being achieved there, Estrella have decided to commence the sales process for the nickel rights over the Spargoville Project. As evidenced by assay results from our maiden drilling campaign in 2018, Spargoville has proven to contain high-grade nickel sulphide and I look forward to updating investors as the sales process for this project unfolds”
Latest results from Estrella’s recent drilling program at its Carr Boyd project have delivered some very encouraging nickel and copper assays. The nickel sulphide project is located 80km north-northeast of Kalgoorlie in Western Australia’s highly mineralised Eastern Goldfields and covers the famed Carr Boyd nickel mine and its surrounds. Carr Boyd was discovered in the 1960s and operated by Western Mining at the time. The ore body was mined between 1973 and 1977 producing around 200,000 tonnes of ore grading 1.43 per cent nickel and 0.46 per cent copper.
Despite several junior explorers tinkering in the region over the intervening period, searching for both nickel and gold, it was Estrella’s focused and systematic exploration program that unearthed the deep-seated T5 nickel sulphide system along strike from the original Carr Boyd mine. Some of the better intercepts include 20.1m at 1.02 per cent nickel and 0.66 per copper from 368.5m and 13.9m at 1.06 per cent nickel and 0.38 per cent copper from 431.6m.
Estrella is very focussed on Carr Boyd and is systematically developing a geological model for it and it is unlikely the company would have got to Spargoville anytime soon.
Its strategy of cashing out of Spargoville will no doubt boost its economic armoury however as it seeks to make Carr Boyd ride again.
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