Shares in Artemis Resources gained ground today after uncovering excellent shallow nickel, copper and cobalt results from drilling at its Radio Hill while its processing plant is tipped to be up and running by end of June.
The results were from reverse circulation drilling of 80 holes for 7052 metres at the top of the Radio Hill ore body within 400m of the processing plant.
Best intercepts included 15 metres at 2.05% nickel, 1.94% copper, 0.09% cobalt from 27m, 7m @ 1.9% nickel, 1.07% copper, 0.08% cobalt from 18m, 8m at 1.14% nickel, 0.96% copper, 0.06% cobalt from 75m within 17m at 0.81% nickel, 0.83% copper, 0.04% cobalt from 67m, 3m at 1.24% nickel, 2.42% copper, 0.07% cobalt from 123m within 26m at 0.57% nickel, 0.92% copper, 0.03% cobalt from 106m.
“These are excellent shallow Ni/Cu/Co sulphide drilling grades from the unmined top of the Radio Hill ore body,” Artemis’s executive chairman David Lenigas said.
Meanwhile, plant refurbishment and upgrades of the Radio Hill processing plant, located 25 km south of Karratha, are progressing as planned and are on schedule to be operational by the end of June 2018.
Mr Lenigas said while Radio Hill plant re-start strategy was initially aimed at gold production, open pit production from Radio Hill would be an important part of its short-term scheduling.
We are aiming to have the Radio Hill open pit resourced, designed and ready for mining well in advance of mill re-commissioning around the middle of this year,” he said.
“The Radio Hill metallurgy is well understood, and the concentrates are a known product for the overseas smelters.”
Mr Lenigas said re-opening the Radio Hill mine was a sound low-risk start-up strategy when considering plant processing costs were currently estimated to be $32 – $42/t for sulphide base metals ores ($20/t – $22/t for gold ores) and today’s commodity prices of A$17,3441 per tonne for nickel, A$8,8761 per tonne for copper and A$101,9101 per tonne for cobalt.
“Artemis is working with AMC Consultants to have the Resources of all of its major assets classified and reported in accordance with the JORC Code (2012), and to prioritise Scoping Studies which include mine scheduling on its Radio Hill Ni/Cu/Co, Whundo Cu/Zn, and Weeriana Au Projects, and Scoping Studies on Carlow Castle Co/Cu/Au,” he said.
Artemis is undertaking Scoping Studies on all of its major projects in the Karratha area, prioritising each project for potential plant feed based on each project’s economic merits.
The current thinking is to begin production on a gold-only strategy for the first few months, sourcing plant feed from either 47 Patch conglomerates and/or Silica Hills and Weeriana, to commission the new Gekko gold recovery circuit.
Open pit sulphide base metals feed from Radio Hill (Ni/Cu/Co), Ruth Well (Ni/Cu/Co), Whundo (Cu/Zn) and Carlow Castle (Co/Cu/Au) will form the basis of a longer-term production strategy.
Shares in Artemis were trading 2c higher at 21c in Tuesday afternoon trade.
