News

June 22, 2009

Mincor Goes Elephant Hunting With The Aid Of An Elephant, Down In The Old Nickel Country Of Kambalda

By Our Man in Oz

Elephants are to be found in elephant country, as the old analogy goes in the mineral exploration game in reference to the hunt for giant orebodies. Mincor, the Australian nickel specialist, has gone one better. It has found a friendly corporate elephant of its own in the form of BHP Billiton to help with its hunt for mineralised elephants, or USNOBs, as they have now been unattractively dubbed after the creation of an acronym for “ultra-sized nickel ore bodies”. Until now, not much has been written about the USNOB search, a situation which should change, because the first results are expected soon from a revolutionary seismic survey which has been conducted across ground to the north of the richly-endowed Kambalda Dome. In theory the survey, using technology normally confined to the oil exploration business, could outline fresh drilling targets on ground which has enormous potential, but which has been ignored for 40 years.

The seismic work has been jointly funded by BHP Billiton, which operates the Kambalda nickel concentrator built in the 1960s by WMC Resources, and Mincor, which has led the way in acquiring old WMC mines and exploration tenements. This curious relationship between a mining minnow, and a company 400 times its size, is a comment on the nature of the nickel industry in and around Kambalda. Most of the mines are relatively small, chasing narrow-veined but rich nickel deposits. That sort of work is...