The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
NIC: TSX
President and CEO: David McPherson
Chairman: R. David Russell
Chief Consulting Geologist: Larry Hulbert
Pure Nickel Inc., a junior with a portfolio of nickel and platinum group element projects in Canada and Alaska, is focused on exploring its Man nickel-copper-platinum group element project.
Itochu Corp., which joined the project at the end of 2008, has agreed to invest as much as US$40 million to earn up to a 75 percent stake in the 290-square-mile-, or 750-square-kilometer, Interior Alaska project.
The Japanese firm, which had the option to back out of the agreement at the end of the 2009 field season, confirmed its confidence in the Man project by exercising its option to vest its interest.
Not only did the 150-year old Tokyo-based mega-corporation choose to continue its partnership, it bumped up its 2010 budget for the nickel-PGE project to US$7.5 million, a US$3.5 million increase over its spending requirements.
Itochu plans to continue this accelerated earn-in at Man by spending US$8 million in each of 2011 and 2012.
Mineralized showings with grades as high as 15.4 percent nickel, 7.2 percent copper and 170 grams per metric ton combined PGE-gold-silver have been discovered on the property.
Pure Nickel geologists believe a deep plumbing system under Man is responsible for these widespread showings.
A multifaceted geophysical program completed in 2009 identified deep conductors under Alpha and Beta, two promising complexes.
Using two helicopter-supported rigs, the Man partners completed around 7,000 meters of drilling focused on deep targets revealed with the geophysics.
Assay results from the summer program were pending in early October.
In addition to drilling and continued geophysics, the Man partners completed a light detection and ranging survey and high-resolution aerial photography.
In addition to assisting in the current exploration, these tools will be used to evaluate the gold potential in the northern portion of the claims, an area with a history of placer gold production.
In addition to its work at Man, Pure Nickel completed a soil sample program at its Rainbow property about 220 miles, or 350 kilometers, southwest of Baker Lake in Nunavut.
Five samples of massive sulfides historically taken from an area known as the Main Zone returned grades between 1.9 and 2.2 percent nickel.
Pure Nickel also has the Salt Chuck copper-gold-silver-palladium project on Prince of Wales in Southeast Alaska and additional nickel prospects in Quebec, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Labrador.
The company's U.S. subsidiary, Nevada Star Resource Corp., has an interest in a number of patented and unpatented mineral claims and leases that comprise a portion of a copper project in southern Utah.
Cash and short-term deposits: C$5.7 million (at May 31, 2010)
Working capital: C$4.4 million (at May 31, 2010)
Market capitalization: C$10.17 million (at Sep. 28, 2010)
95 Wellington St. West, Ste. 900 Toronto, ON M5J 2N7
Tel: 416-644-0066 Fax: 416-644-0069
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