Nuinsco proves up Mel deposit

Drilling by Nuinsco Resources (NWI-T) at the Mel nickel deposit, 25 km north of Thompson, Man., has hit good grades at minable widths.

Results from the 21-hole, 4,000-metre program will be used to update the resource and incorporated into a scoping study. Highlights are as follows:

— 5.5 metres grading 2.33% nickel;

— 5.4 metres grading 2.11% nickel, including a 3-metre intercept of 2.54% nickel;

— 7.7 metres grading 1.88% nickel, including a 2.6-metre intercept of 3.13% nickel;

— 3.7 metres grading 2.4% nickel, including 1.4 metres of 2.96% nickel;

— 4.3 metres grading 2.08% nickel.

One hole was abandoned. Another tested a pulse-electromagnetic anomaly 600 metres north of the deposit, intersecting 0.92 metre grading 1.31% nickel. Eleven other holes contained intercepts ranging from 1.23% to 2.98% nickel over widths of 1-7.4 metres.

The 155-sq.-km property comprises one lease and 60 claims. In 2000, the resource was estimated at 290,000 tonnes grading 1.7% nickel in the indicated category, plus an inferred 260,000 tonnes at the same grade. The estimates are based on drilling to a vertical depth of 230 metres.

The drilling tested the deposit at vertical depths of 90-180 metres in areas below known mineralization.

Extensive swamp and overburden mask the local geology; however, the property is primarily underlain by garnet-sillimanite-biotite schist interbedded with meta-sediments and minor iron formation of the Lower Pipe formation and intruded by ultramafics. The massive and stringer nickel-sulphides (primarily pyrrhotite with lesser pentlandite) are concentrated in the ultramafic rocks and their halos.

Most nickel deposits in the Thompson nickel belt are found in similarly aged Opswagen group rocks.

The property is under option from Inco (n-t). Nuinsco can earn a 100% interest by spending $6 million by August 2004.