Poseidon Nickel CEO and MD David Singleton provides an update on the recent Lake Johnston acquisition and the company's plans already in place to bring the mine back into production.

Investors in Australia's junior mining sector are feeling the same pain as those in North America but Paul Adams, an analyst with brokerage firm DJ Carmichael in Perth, believes select junior resource companies will outperform the broad markets as macro-level events impact certain commodities. In this interview with The Gold Report, Adams suggests that strong demand fundamentals in nickel, zinc and uranium could mean better years ahead for equities with exposure to those commodities. Adams also discusses DJ Carmichael's new investment strategy and several companies that fit into it.

 

View The Gold Report online coverage here >

 

 

A second acquisition deal with Norilsk Nickel will see Poseidon Nickel acquire the Lake Johnston nickel project, which has been on care and maintenance since April 2013. In July, we entered an agreement to acquire the Black Swan project, including an open cut mine and nickel sulphide plant. This latest deal is for the Lake Johnston tenements, resources and infrastructure, 440km east of Perth and 117km west of Norseman. Together with our existing Windarra project, we now have near term production potential at three mineral provinces in WA.

 

The new project comprises 11 mining leases, 10 exploration licences and one prospecting licence hosting the Emily Ann and Maggie Hays deposits. Maggie Hays was developed as an underground mine and produced more than 12,000 tonnes per annum of good quality smeltable nickel concentrate. The ore was processed through a 1.5 million tonne per annum concentrator plant, which is included in the acquisition.

 

We planned to evaluate restarting operations at Lake Johnston with a view to bringing the project back into production shortly after contract completion.

 

Maggie Hays has a resource estimate of 3.805 million tonnes grading 1.49 per cent nickel, while Emily Ann has resources of 334,000t grading 4.18 per cent nickel. The area has significant exploration potential that could extend the life of the current project. Only limited drilling exploration has taken place in recent years but this has led to several highly prospective areas being identified.

 

We plan to undertake a major new exploration program on the tenements guided by the work undertaken to date with the objective of further extending the projects operational life.

 

Existing infrastructure that we acquire includes boxcut, portals and decline at Maggie Hays and Emily Ann; haul and site access roads; run of mine pads and waste dumps at Maggie Hays and Emily Ann; a crushing, screening and grinding plant; a concentrate production plant, storage shed and weighbridge; dewatering and potable water bore network; 140-person Windy Hill accommodation camp, about 7km south of Emily Ann; office, workshop and support facilities; and an airstrip.

 

We now have three nickel projects all within 270km of Kalgoorlie. Importantly all three projects have the mines and access to infrastructure to enable production to be brought on-line quickly and at low levels of capital investment. All of the projects are in well-endowed mining regions and have demonstrated resource extension potential which could lead to extended production life. We will be growing our output just as nickel supply is moving into deficit following strong Chinese stainless steel production, reportedly up 18.2 per cent year on year, and reduction of nickel supply from Indonesia.

 

Over the coming weeks and months I’ll provide updates on our progress and activities at Lake Johnston - register here for updates.

 

 

 

 

Our most recent acquisition at Lake Johnson was secured following a detailed due diligence process by our experienced management team. Lake Johnson was shutdown in 2013 following an investment by the previous owners of approximately $15M in refurbishment costs in 2011. The operation ran for less than two years prior to being shutdown.

 

Lake Johnson is located approximately 330km south west of Kalgoorlie. The Lake Johnson plant is a 1.5MTPA nickel sulphide concentrator. LionOre completed an expansion in 2005. The concentrator has a three stage crushing circuit followed by a single 4.8MW ball mill in closed circuit. The flowsheet includes flash flotation and a standard downstream flotation circuit. Two Larox filters are available to recover a concentrate. A local island power plant supplies the power required for the concentrator. A 180 person village is located a short distance from the mine site with modern recreational facilities. Lake Johnson has historically produced a quality concentrate free of deleterious elements.

 

Over the next few weeks I’ll provide regular updates and more detailed information on our progress and activities in bringing Lake Johnston back into production - register here for updates.

 

Note: This is an extract taken from the 2014 Poseidon Nickel Annual Report for a full pdf copy click here.

 

 

 

With the success our geologists have had to date at the Windarra Nickel Project, the Geology Team is extremely excited about the recent Black Swan and Lake Johnson acquisitions from Norilsk Nickel. The two new projects have large tenement holdings covering vast sequences of nickel hosting.

 

We currently use standard configuration drilling systems both on the surface and underground but have been experimenting with the Wasarra drill system which offers the promise of faster drill times andlower costs.

 

Massive nickel bearing sulphide underground at Lake Johnson in a pyrrhotite-pyrite pentlandite ore. Recent drilling hasidentified some of the highest grades and widths of ore ever seen at Windarra. ultramafics. Whilst both operations have undergone significant quality exploration resulting in mine discoveries during their operational histories; new technology, software, geophysical/geochemical techniques and evolving geological ideas are now available to potentially extend existing mineralization or to define new targets.

 

Due to fluctuating nickel prices since the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) both operations have experienced pressure from declining nickel prices resulting in several shut downs and restarts of the mining operations. This has had an effect on resource/reserve drilling, mine planning, mine production schedules and ongoing exploration expenditure. It is evident that improvement can be made to the grade control, mine planning and mining operations of both Black Swan and Lake Johnson operations following a campaign of in-mine drilling to exploit near mine opportunities prior to the recommencement of mining.

 

Evaluation of the existing drilling data is currently being undertaken using modern specialised software which will highlight favorable areas that require infill drilling and identify trends in the mineralisation which may have been overlooked to date due the financial/production pressures.

 

Poseidon’s geologists are currently reviewing and rebuilding the drilling data sets, geological models and mine models for both operations. Poseidon’s Geology Team likes to look at things through a new set of eyes and inject their own ideas and interpretations into all of the projects they look at. Poseidon’s exploration success to date is corner-stoned by our geologist’s ability to evaluate opportunities independently, come up with new geological models/ideas and have the confidence to test them. Most of the near-surface mineralisation has been found by the previous owners. We now have to look smarter, deeper and for blind deposits within and under structurally complex zones which have had limited exploration undertaken on them to date. There is no such thing as a failed hole in the Poseidon Geology Team, it’s another piece of information to assist in the interpretation and definition of our geological models and exploration targets.

 

These acquisitions along with the company’s flagship Windarra Nickel Project, puts Poseidon in a prime position to be ‘Australia’s New Nickel’.

 

Over the coming weeks and months I’ll provide updates and more detailed information on our drilling and exploration progress and activities at Lake Johnston - register here for updates.

 

Note: This is an extract taken from the 2014 Poseidon Nickel Annual Report for a full pdf copy click here.

 

 

Poseidon Nickel (OTC:PSDNF) has released its quarterly report, looking back on the third quarter of calendar year 2015 which changed the company completely. Poseidon Nickel completed the acquisition of the Black Swan nickel project and concentrator, announced a deal to acquire the Lake Johnston nickel project as well and negotiated a toll milling agreement with BHP Billiton for a part of the Windarra nickel ore.

 

View the Seeking Alpha online report here >

 

 

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