Poseidon Nickel Limited (ASX:POS) is pleased to announce that it has taken full operational control of the Black Swan nickel operation from OJSC MMC Norilsk Nickel (“Norilsk”).  This follows announcement of the acquisition in 2014 which was then subject to legal completion activities.

The acquisition of the project brings with it the Black Swan nickel sulphide concentrator plant, the Black Swan sulphide ore open pit mine and the Silver Swan underground mine.  The processing plant was extensively upgraded and expanded in 2006 and was put on care and maintenance in February 2009 during the financial crisis. The plant has a proven throughput capacity of 2,150,000 tonnes per annum of ore.

To find out more about the latest acquisition, please click here.

Poseidon Nickel Limited (ASX:POS or the Company) is pleased to announce that is has now assayed 29 underground diamond drill holes that were completed at Lake Johnston prior to its acquisition.  These results will increase the potential life of the mine and enhance the profitability of the intended restart.

In the resource estimate published by Poseidon in December 2014, the North Shoot was all categorised as Inferred resource despite the amount of drilling and completed within the shoot.  It was identified that survey errors existed in the database resulting in misalignment of the model with the development, resulting in low geological confidence in the resource modelling.  These survey errors have now been corrected.  In addition 100 drill holes were identified as missing from the database and the data for these have now been located (see Figure 1 for the areas of missing data).  A resource re-estimation is currently underway which should result in the majority of the North Shoot being upgraded to Indicated resource category or higher.

Poseidon has now commenced a detailed mine planning and scheduling programme which will look at maximising the ore extraction and redeveloping the mine infrastructure to better access the ore zones.  This work is expected to be complete in March 2015, some 3 months ahead of the original schedule.

For detailed information click here for full press announcement.