NICKEL junior Cassini Resources is undergoing a $10 million share placement in the wake of its acquisition of BHP Billiton’s West Musgrave nickel project.
The acquisition deal – which included a $250,000 cash deposit, a 2 per cent smelter royalty, and a further $10 million to be paid within 12 months after production starts – was signed by Perth-based Cassini and the global giant in early April.
The 1000 square kilometre West Musgrave project, on the border of WA, the Northern Territory and South Australia, contains the highly mineralised nickel-copper Nebo and Babel sister deposits (Nebo-Babel) and the Succoth copper exploration prospect, as well as several other highly prospective tenements. Nebo-Babel was discovered in 2000, when a Western Mining drill intersected 26.55m grading 2.45 per cent nickel, 1.78 per cent copper, and 0.74 grams per tonne of platinum group elements, plus gold. Nebo-Babel has an inferred resource of 446 million tonnes grading 0.33 per cent nickel and 0.35 per cent copper (0.2 per cent nickel cutoff) for 1.47mt of contained nickel and 1.56mt of contained copper.
“These are truly significant assets, and it is a great result for Cassini to have been successful in acquiring them,” Cassini managing director Richard Bevan said. “Nebo-Babel was a very prominent
discovery…and is widely regarded as a world-class deposit. As a smaller company, we can apply a different, innovative approach to these assets, focussing on higher grade opportunities, with the aim of progressing their development to production as a priority. “We believe significant value can be generated for our shareholders in a reasonably short time frame. We foresee that a number of significant project milestones are capable of being achieved within the next 6 to 12 months.” Cassini released 55.56 million new shares at $0.18 each to domestic and international investors, shortly after the announcement.
The share scheme will reportedly fund further exploration work at the project after environmental and native title approvals are obtained in the coming
months.
Cassini said it initially aimed to develop a small but high grade mining operation.
