Centaurus Metals (ASX:CTM) has achieved a further substantial increase in the Mineral Resource for its flagship 100%-owned Jaguar Nickel Project in north-eastern Brazil, confirming its status as the world’s premier near-surface nickel sulphide development project with class-leading GHG emission credentials.
The company said the increase confirms Jaguar as one of the largest nickel sulphide resources held by an ASX-listed company and the largest outside of the majors. The updated JORC 2012 Mineral Resource Estimate (MRE), comprising 80.6Mt @ 0.91% Ni for 730,700 tonnes of contained nickel, reflects the success of Centaurus’ intensive resource in-fill, extensional and step-out drilling programmes completed during 2021 and further reinforces the Tier-1 potential of the Jaguar Project.
The success of the in-fill resource development programme has also resulted in an increase in the Indicated component of the Resource to 43.4Mt @ 0.92% Ni for 397,000t of contained nickel, representing 54% of the Global MRE.
It is expected that the Indicated component of the MRE, which will be available for conversion to Ore Reserves as part of the Definitive Feasibility Study (DFS) due for completion next year, will continue to grow as further in-fill drilling is undertaken over the next six months.
The Indicated Resource commences from surface and is predominantly located within the open pit limits of the May 2021 Nickel Sulphate Scoping Study.
More than 500,000 tonnes of the contained nickel of the Global MRE lies within 200m of surface, representing +70% of the total contained metal.
The mineralisation remains open down-dip at all deposits and locally along strike, with outstanding potential to continue strong resource growth driven by step-out and extensional drilling targeting DHEM conductor plates and greenfields drilling of the extensive regional exploration pipeline.
The total MRE at Jaguar has increased by 30% since the Scoping Study Resource Estimate was announced in March 2021 and more than 40% since the company’s maiden Resource was announced in June 2020.
Successful step-out and extensional drilling, together with recent exploration success, has delivered an exceptional 168,000 tonnes of additional contained nickel metal since the previous estimate in March 2021.
In addition, Centaurus has added 213,000 tonnes of contained nickel since the Company’s maiden Resource in June 2020, reflecting an impressive track record of defining new resources at the rate of ~140,000 tonnes of contained nickel per annum with sustained and focused drilling at Jaguar.
The new, larger resource will underpin mine optimisation and production profile studies set to start in 2022 that will determine the optimal mine capacity for the development of the Project.
Any expansion of the processing plant capacity and/or production profile is likely to have a material positive impact on the project economics and delivery of nickel-in-sulphate, which currently stands at 20,000ktpa for 13 years.
The success of the company’s in-fill drilling strategy has further de-risked the Project by increasing confidence in the shallow open pit mineralisation that will underpin early payback in any future mining operation at Jaguar.
Centaurus’ Managing Director, Mr Darren Gordon, said the delivery of a 30% increase in the contained nickel as part of this major Resource upgrade was an exceptional result which confirmed Jaguar as one of the most significant new nickel sulphide projects to emerge globally over the past decade.
“The Jaguar Resource, which now stands at 80.6Mt @ 0.91% Ni for 730,700 tonnes of contained nickel, now hosts more contained nickel than the largest nickel sulphide deposit on the ASX not held by a major mining company,” he said.
“This exceptional result confirms our view that Jaguar is well on the way to becoming a world-class nickel mine with sector leading ESG and greenhouse gas emissions credentials.
“Since our maiden JORC Resource in June of 2020 we have safely completed more than 50,000m of drilling despite the COVID-19 pandemic and have successfully added more than 210,000t of contained nickel in resources at a rate of 140kt of contained nickel per annum – which is an outstanding achievement and a credit to the entire Centaurus team.
“After acquiring the Project, drilling in 2020 focused on in-filling and upgrading as much of the Resource as we could into the Indicated category so we could complete our Scoping Study. 2021 saw further in-fill drilling but with an additional focus on step-out and extensional drilling which has resulted in this further significant increase.
“If we are able to maintain our current growth rate of 140kt of contained nickel per annum, we can realistically aim to grow the Resource to over one million tonnes of contained nickel by the time we are building the project in the second half of 2023. That would well and truly position it as a world-class project.
“It is incredible to think that we will have a high-grade open pittable nickel sulphide project, located in a world-class mining province, with access to more than 80% renewable power and knocking on the door of operations to deliver high-margin, low GHG emission nickel.
“As part of the ongoing DFS activities, which are progressing well, we will now assess the option of increasing the plant production capacity above 2.7Mtpa as currently envisaged.
“Any expansion of the processing plant and the resulting production rate of nickel sulphate is expected to have a material positive impact on the project economics and could move Jaguar well inside the top-10 of nickel sulphide producing mines globally.
“While Jaguar’s strong economics lie at the heart of the Project, we also plan to deliver our nickel at class-leading levels of GHG emissions as a result of the relatively high-grade nature of the ore, the fact that 80% of the power in Brazil is generated from renewable sources (principally hydro and solar) and that the value-added nickel sulphate product is to be produced on site at Jaguar.
“At the presently assessed level of 4.69 tonnes of CO2/tonne of nickel equivalent, the Jaguar Project will be one of the lowest carbon emission projects in the nickel industry.
“Jaguar has already shown that it can keep growing with focused drilling and we are positioning ourselves to maximise that growth as part of the current DFS. We have eight diamond rigs on site now and that will increase to 11 by early next year.
“That means we can look forward to strong exploration and development news-flow into 2022 as we take the next key steps with this remarkable project. “This work will pave the way for a further Resource upgrade, targeted for Q3 2022, that will form the foundation of the Definitive Feasibility Study due for completion by the end of 2022.”
For further information please visit: https://www.centaurus.com.au/site/content/
