Nordic Nickel (ASX: NNL) has revealed positive results from a first-pass metallurgical testing program of samples from its Hotinvaara nickel-cobalt deposit in northern Finland.
The tests proved that a premium nickel concentrate can be produced from extensive disseminated pentlandite present throughout Hotinvaara using conventional processing methods.
The deposit has a current resource of 418 million tonnes at 0.21% nickel and 0.01% cobalt (0.22% nickel equivalent) for 862,800t of contained nickel and 40,000t contained cobalt.
Canadian deposits
Locked-cycle testing of a master composite from 11 samples across the deposit produced a clean concentrate grading 18.4% nickel and 0.66% cobalt, with an average of 75% of the total nickel assay in sulphide form.
These results are believed to compare favourably with lower-grade nickel sulphide deposits currently under development in Canada including Crawford (owned by Canada Nickel), Turnagain (Giga Metals), Baptiste (FPX Nickel) and Dumont (Nion Nickel).
Although Hotinvaara’s total nickel grade of 0.21% matches that of Turnagain and Baptiste, Nordic stated that the high pentlandite content and subsequently higher recovery rate result in the deposit having the highest recoverable nickel grade.
Hotinvaara’s comminution test results have also been better than average compared to the Canadian deposits and indicate that the ore would be amenable to SAG milling and is not abrasive, both positive for project economics.
Pulju prospectivity
Hotinvaara’s metallurgical results are believed to have enhanced the prospectivity of the district-scale Pulju nickel-copper-cobalt project, which comprises 240 square kilometres of ground in Finland’s Central Lapland greenstone belt.
Pulju has so far been shown to host predominantly shallow, disseminated lower-grade nickel sulphides (such as those forming the majority of Hotinvaara), with some thin zones of extremely high-grade massive/remobilised sulphides.
The remobilised sulphides intersected so far at Hotinvaara have shown grades of up to 9.6% nickel and demonstrated that Pulju has the potential for a style of extremely high-grade mineralisation that is yet to be targeted.
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