Falcon hailing nickel province

Exciting drill results from Western Australia’s north east goldfields have market watchers anticipating more discoveries from what is being hailed “a significant new nickel province”.

While it is early days, the Collurabbie joint venture project, about 150 kilometres east of WA’s famous Yandal greenstone belt has experienced nickel miner WMC Resources excited.

 “What we are seeing at Collurabbie are very rare results for Australian nickel sulphide exploration,” WMC executive general manager, business strategy and development Michael Nossal told a conference last week.

“While it is still early days, the drill results to date at Collurabbie suggest we are onto a significant new nickel province,” he said.

According to WMC, drilling at the Olympia prospect within the Collurabbie – 30 per cent controlled by West Perth junior explorer Falcon Minerals – has revealed high grade discoveries of nickel, copper and platinum.

The most recent results include a 5.77 metre zone containing 3 per cent nickel, 1.96 per cent copper and 5.29 grams per tonne of total platinum group metals.

Falcon’s decision to retain a 30 per cent interest in its Collurabbie project after 13 years of unsuccessful gold exploration appears to have paid off.

Shares in Falcon jumped 41 per cent on the back of the recent Collurabbie results from 33 cents on November 17 to 56 cents on November 23.

Falcon managing director Richard Diermajer said: “This is unique worldwide. There is mineralisation here never seen before”.

He said evidence of platinum group metals, which had not been witnessed before in connection with Australian nickel deposits, had the potential to make the discovery very valuable.

The mineralisation at Collurabbie is compared to Falconbridge’s world class nickel Raglan deposit in Canada.

Other companies with positions near Collurabbie are also benefiting from the results. Stock in Joseph Gutnick’s Regis Resources, which has a small stake in ground south of Collurabbie together with Falcon (20 per cent) and large gold miner Newmont (62 per cent), has jumped 45 per cent from 4.5 cents to 8.4 cents since the discovery.

To the east, Perth-based Cullen Resources is joint-ventured with Newmont and WMC in the Gunbarrel gold and nickel project.

Cullen’s share price has leapt 29 per cent from 3.3 cents to 4.7 cents since November 17.

Gryphon Minerals, which has a tenement application south of Colurabbie, enjoyed a 10 per cent share price rise from 22 cents.