Magna advances on Sudbury, Ont., PGM results
Magna Mining Inc. [NICU-TSXV] shares rallied in active trading Monday after the company said drill crews had intersected high grade platinum group metal (PGM) footwall mineralization at its Crean Hill Mine project near Sudbury, Ont.
The shares jumped 8.7% or 10 cents to $1.25 on volume of 1.46 million and currently trade in a 52-week range of $1.15 and 23.5 cents.
Magna Mining is an exploration and development company with a focus on nickel, copper and PGM projects in the Sudbury region. Its flagship assets are the past producing Shakespeare and Crean Hill Mines. Shakespeare is a feasibility stage project which has major permits for the construction of a 4,500 tonne per day open pit mine, processing plant and tailings storage facility.
The company recently completed the acquisition of Lonmin Canada Inc., which owns the Denison Project. The Denison Project is centred on the past-producing Crean Hill Mine in the Sudbury Basin, which was a significant past producer of nickel-copper and PGMs over a period spanning more than 80 years.
Magna has said more recent exploration on the property by Loncan has demonstrated the potential for high grade platinum, palladium and gold mineralization in the footwall of the contact nickel zones.
The Denison Project hosts open pit indicated resource of 16.8 million tonnes of 0.53% nickel, 0.49% copper, 0.02% cobalt, 0.48 g/t platinum, 0.37 g/t palladium, 0.25 g/t gold or 1.08% NiEq (nickel equivalent). It also hosts an underground indicated resource of 14.5 million tonnes of grade 0.96% nickel, 0.84% copper, 0.03% cobalt, 0.88 g/t platinum, 1.02 g/t palladium, 0.54 g/t gold or 2.07% NiEq.
That amounts to 500 million pounds of contained nickel, 450 million pounds of copper, 1.7 million ounces of platinum-palladium and gold in the indicated category. The company has said this resource starts at surface and could be amenable to open pit mining as well as near surface underground mining methods.
Following completion of the Lonmin acquisition, Magna said it planned to commence a maiden exploration program at Crean Hill in part to demonstrate potential synergies between Crean Hill and the nearby Shakespeare asset.
In a November 17, 2022 press release, the company said it expected to complete approximately 2,000 metres of drilling prior to Christmas and resume drilling in early January. It said initial drilling is targeted within the current mineral resources, within areas that will be considered for advanced exploration and potential bulks sampling.
On Monday, the company released the first assays received from drilling on the 109 Footwall Zone. Drill hoe MCR-22-010 was targeted within the near surface 109 FW Zone Mineral Resource and intersected mineralization grading 0.4% nickel, 0.5% copper, 7.2 g/t platinum-palladium-gold over 98.3 metres.
The 109 FW Zone is another distinct footwall zone, located proximal to the Main Zone. Drilling in the 109 FW Zone will enable Magna geologists to better understand the 109 FW low sulphide, high PGE mineralization, and geological setting controlling the distribution and continuity of mineralization.
“This information will be essential for optimizing the mine plan for the preliminary economic assessment that is underway,’’ the company said.