Home > News > CANADA NICKEL turning heads...

CANADA NICKEL turning heads with nickel-cobalt play northeast of Timmins

Jul 22, 2020


By Kevin Vincent
For the city’s first five decades, the most prominent word in the world-famous Timmins mining camp was gold. Then, in the 1960’s that changed when the staggering zinc-copper Kidd Creek deposit was discovered. Today, notwithstanding 100-plus years of gold, copper and zinc production, Timmins is staring at the possibility of yet another mineral upsurge, nickel, cobalt and surprisingly, palladium and platinum as well.
That’s all thanks to junior explorer, Canada Nickel Company.
The company turned heads this spring when they released exploration results highlighting their efforts at the Crawford Project, just northeast of Timmins.
In fact, based on company data released in conjunction with that news release, Canada Nickel believes it may be sitting on one of the top 12 nickel deposits in the world.
Canada Nickel Company bills itself as advancing the next generation of nickel-cobalt sulphide projects to deliver nickel and cobalt required to feed the high growth electric vehicle and stainless steel markets.
The company is anchored by its 100% owned flagship Crawford Nickel-Cobalt Project in the heart of the prolific Timmins-Cochrane mining camp.
Canada Nickel followed up that news release later in the month with another spectacular announcement that their mineralization extends significantly.
Those results include a third hole, CR20-33, into the newly discovered East Zone, which extends nickel mineralization a farther 400 metres east, and the nickel assays from the previously reported hole CR20-32, which extend Main Zone nickel mineralization by 1.5 kilometres to the north.
The new East Zone discovery has been tested for 2.1 km of its overall 2.8 km interpreted strike length and the original Main Zone remains open for several kilometres to the west.
“We are very pleased with the latest significant nickel mineralization step-outs – extending our Main Zone by 1.5 kilometres and our East Zone discovery by 400 metres. Importantly, this is the second of three holes on the East Zone with a higher grade interval (0.37% nickel over 38 metres) that also contained elevated palladium and platinum grades,” said Mark Selby, Chair and CEO of Canada Nickel.  
“Our latest drilling results further reinforce our belief that Crawford is one of the leading next generation nickel-cobalt sulphide and palladium projects. “
Selby says the timing is perfect for another major source of nickel given the projected demand for minerals that will play a significant role in the EV or electric vehicle market. According to Selby, every 15-20 years world markets have seen a nickel “super-cycle”.
“Nickel has always been a very high demand growth metal,” said Selby in a recent television interview.
Selby and other nickel producers are hopeful that as the demand for nickel grows, so too will the price.
Canada Nickel consolidated the project from two other junior companies in late 2019 to pursue this project, Noble Minerals and Spruce Ridge.
The company’s Exploration Manager, Bill MacRae has been with the project since 2018 when they drilled their first set of holes by Spruce Ridge Resources.
The Crawford Project site, which straddles highway 655 between the Kidd Creek Mine and the town of Cochrane, was first drilled by INCO in 1965 and 1966.
“INCO was looking for a large nickel deposit because of the large magnetic anomaly they were aware of at that time,” MacRae told Mining Life. “The grade was low for them at that time, so they didn’t do anything about it.”
When the assays came back, Spruce Ridge was able to reproduce the same values that INCO uncovered more than five decades earlier.
As of mid-May, the company was approaching 50 drill holes according to MacRae.
Financial markets were encouraged by what they saw. The company went to market to raise $2.5 million and they ended up raising $4.4m.
MacRae says Canada Nickel is planning a series of large-diameter drilling that will help better define what is in the ground.
As for the palladium and platinum content, the company is still modeling what they’ve discovered before they can include it in the resource estimates.  MacRae says the company expects to finalize another resource estimate by the summer, or at the very latest, the fall.
“I think we will move well up on that chart,” said MacRae, referencing the company’s estimate that it sits with the 12th largest global nickel deposit.
Interestingly, in its most recent presentation, the company references market data supplied by Glencore as well as identifying the proximity of the Glencore-owned, Kidd Creek Metallurgical Complex.

 



Tags: Northern Ontario / Exploration / Battery Metals / All Articles