Tartisan Nickel Corp. (CSE:TN; OTCQB:TTSRF) has been busy preparing for the next phase of exploration and project development for its 100%-owned Kenbridge Nickel Project located in northwestern Ontario’s Kenora Mining District. A Preliminary Economic Assessment Report , “PEA” has outlined a low-cost, 1,500 to 2,000-ton per day operation. The study forecasts an initial nine-year mine life with pre-production capital costs of $133.7 million and a potential start-up in three and a half years. Kenbridge hosts a 622-metre shaft that was sunk by Falconbridge in 1954 and is in good condition.
The Kenbridge Nickel Project is located 70 km southeast of Kenora and has a land position encompassing 42 km2 including a mix of patented and unpatented claims. A 13-km all-season access road to the property is scheduled for completion in autumn 2024. Grid power is within 40 km of the site and a skilled workforce is locally available in Kenora, Dryden, Fort Frances and neighbouring First Nations communities.
Since 1937, the property has been tested by 685 surface and underground drill holes totalling 120,000 metres, including 40,000 metres drilled by Canadian Arrow Mines and 10,700 metres drilled by Tartisan in 2021.
Since 1937, the property has been tested by 685 surface and underground drill holes totalling 120,000+ metres.
According to Dean MacEachern, Tartisan’s Chief Consulting Geologist, “We drilled a few 1,000 metre plus holes in 2021 and discovered that the mineralization does continue at depth and along strike. We believe that we can expand the resource and ultimately the mine life. As a result of the 2021 drill campaign, we were able to increase the resource by approximately 20%. We also did borehole geophysics down drill holes, and drilled four holes at a site we call Kenbridge North, three kilometres away. Kenbridge North has similar geophysical and geological characteristics, so it’s potentially a secondary deposit.”
Tartisan has budgeted for an additional 8,500 plus metres of drilling in 2024 to continue to test the down-dip extension and bring some of the inferred resource into the indicated category.
The PEA, which is focused solely on the current underground mineral resource, reports 3.4 million tonnes of ore at 0.97% nickel, 0.52% copper and 0.013% cobalt in the measured and indicated categories. Inferred mineral resources total 1.0 million tonnes at 1.47% nickel, 0.67% copper and 0.011% cobalt.
Kenbridge “is a nickel sulphide, gabbro-hosted deposit similar to deposits that were mined in Lynn Lake, Manitoba, by Sherritt Gordon Mines years ago,” said MacEachern. “At the top, it’s more disseminated and as you go deeper into the zone, it gets more semi-massive and massive. It gets narrower but the grade gets better.”
MacEachern adds that one of the advantages of the project is that the existing infrastructure makes for a modest capex. “It’s under $140 million to get started. That compares with a lot of large low-grade deposits that will take $2 billion to get going.”
“There are some underground zones that are higher grade that can be brought into the mining plan early,” said MacEachern. “That will allow us to pay back the project in a little more than three years and if the price of nickel moves up, so much the better. By focusing on the underground, we alleviate risk if the price of nickel goes down to, say, US$6 per pound.”
According to Kenbridge Project Manager and First Nations Liaison Greg Edwards, “Tartisan has support from the First Nations impacted by the project: Naotkamegwanning First Nation, formerly known as the Whitefish Bay First Nation, Northwest Angle #33 First Nation and Northwest Angle #37 First Nation. We maintain contact and look forward to our First Nations community engagement”.
