Mirabela posts resource for Sta. Rita

Mirabela Nickel (MNB-T, MBN-A) will start a scoping study on building a smelter at the Santa Rita nickel project in Bahia state, Brazil, after a new resource calculation showed a 40% increase in the size of the Santa Rita nickel deposit.

The new resource, constrained inside a pit design, amounts to 69 million measured and indicated tonnes grading 0.61% nickel and 0.15% copper, plus an inferred resource of another 7 million tonnes grading 0.53% nickel and 0.15% copper. The pit design shows a stripping ratio of 7.7 and the resource has an average cutoff grade of 0.38% nickel.

The resource is based on 313 drill holes and 73,500 metres of drilling. Another 27 holes Mirabela has drilled since work started on the resource estimate, including some holes on the deposit’s Southern Deeps zone.

Adding the resources that are outside the proposed pit boundary, Santa Rita is now known to have a measured and indicated resource of 89 million tonnes, at average grades of 0.57% nickel and 0.14% copper, plus an inferred resource of 15.2 million tonnes at .51% nickel and 0.14% copper.

Ongoing feasibility work is likely to be based on a larger milling rate, and the company is studying the economics of buidling a smelter that would take 150,000 tonnes concentrate annually to produce a nickel matte grading 50% to 60% nickel. Given concentrate grades of 12% to 13% nickel, this implies production of about 35,000 tonnes of matte containing 19,000 tonnes nickel each year.