Today I’m speaking with Neil Richardson. Neil is an Advisory Board member for North American Nickel Inc. (TSX: V.NAN, Stock Forum).
Mr. Richardson, P. Geo., has over 22 years experience in mineral exploration and mining operations of base metal and precious metal deposits throughout Canada. Neil worked for HudBay Minerals Inc. (TSX: T.HBM, Stock Forum) as a Senior Exploration Geologist responsible for greenfield and brownfield projects in the Flin Flon - Snow Lake area. He was part of a team that discovered a number of new mineralized zones throughout the belt.
Rick: Okay Neil, let’s get into the history and management, and we’ll go from there into the projects.
Neil: Sure, no problem. North American Nickel is a spin-off company from VMS Ventures Inc. (TSX: V.VMS, Stock Forum) had, prior to creating North American Nickel, numerous nickel projects, Thompson, Cedar Lake, the South Bay Nickel Project.
But shareholders weren’t getting very much value for them in VMS. Also at VMS we were focusing on the belt that the name of the company is from, VMS, the Snow Lake - Flin Flon Greenstone belt.
We ended up creating North American Nickel.
The management here at NAN is basically the same crew as at VMS. We’ve got Rick Mark as the CEO, Dr. Mark Fedikow is the President and Chief Operating Officer and we’ve put together a very good board.
Rick: Projects?
Neil: NAN picked up a couple projects in Sudbury, we did a 43-101 on Post Creek, that was our property of merit. We also picked up the Bell Lake property on the Worthington Offset, which is very interesting as well.
We’ve got some work lined up for the Bell Lake Project, geophysics, a deep penetrating EM surface survey and I’m currently in the process of generating a 3D model in Gemcom using the historical drilling and surface mapping, hopefully when we get back the results from the deep penetrating EM, we’ll be able to integrate that in as well, and then we’ll see where we go from there.
We went into Sudbury and started off doing some simple beep map traverses overtop of an area that had been flown by VTEM, by a previous exploration company, around 2005. We got some good signals, so we did some preliminary trenching and discovered quartz diorite (QD).
We recognized the QD so we brought in outside consultants, Walter Peredery and Andy Bite, to review. These guys are Sudbury nickel experts, they reviewed the projects, the mapping and the rock samples through thin sections. They have verified that this is a quartz diorite offset dyke. That immediately sparked a large excavation program and we’ve now uncovered numerous sites up there with quartz diorite dyke, completed a surface time domain survey, outlined numerous conductors throughout the property, and this fall we started our first drill program up on Post Creek, we’re starting to test the EM anomalies.
Now it’s a matter of waiting for results to come back from the lab.
Rick: How important is the discovery of the quartz dyke?
Neil: Well, the recognition of the QD offset dyke was critical for us, because it was always thought to not have the offset dyke up in that location meaning this shouldn’t have been very prospective for nickel-copper-platinum group metals-gold mineralization.
But the recognition of the quartz diorite dyke with partial melt and the melting of the country rocks, that’s all part of the Sudbury event. Also we have some EM anomalies in an area that is a favorable geological setting, we’ll just have to wait and see what the assays return here, because there’s definitely opportunities here for high PGM and/or copper/nickel mineralization.
Rick: When you talk about the Sudbury event, you’re talking about the huge meteor strike.
Neil: Yes. When the meteorite impact occurred, these radiating, or offset dykes, occurred throughout the whole camp, the quartz diorite material was literally shot into the dyke, and with them, PGMs and nickel/copper mineralization.
Rick: Where else is North American Nickel operating?
Neil: We’ve acquired a large land position in Greenland, 48,000 square km, around what we’re calling our Maniitsoq Project. We’re looking for nickel mineralization, nickel/copper mineralization, PGMs as well, associated in norites.
We are now completing the airborne survey flown in September. We were on the ground earlier in the summer doing some preliminary prospecting, ground truthing of targets. We’ve compiled all the historical data and put that into an ArcGIS format.
Adam Garde, a former Danish Geological Survey geologist, is postulating that the Maniitsoq area is an impact structure. John Ferguson, who is a world expert in meteorite impacts, thinks he’s right, so does the Greenland Geological Survey. We’re not necessarily convinced it is, we’re still reviewing that, but the one thing we do know is there’s a lot of nickel tenure in the norites there.
We do have ore grade intersections historically in core. We haven’t gone back and re-sampled it, but Falconbridge, back in the old days has, so there is nickel mineralization there, and that’s why we’re putting together a large land position. We are flying an airborne survey over top of favorable areas, and hopefully coming back with some really good targets for next season’s summer exploration program.
Rick: Greenland is very prospective for minerals, especially the west coast where you guys are working and pretty favorably disposed towards mining and exploration.
Neil: Greenland’s an excellent area to work in. They’re very pro-mining. It’s no more expensive than working in Canada’s Arctic, so you use that as the comparable for the guys who are up in Nunavut and places like that. It’s about the same cost, so not much difference in that regard.
The one thing that is more favorable than Canada’s Arctic is the fact that where we are, on the West Coast, the ports are open 12 months of the year. So the seaport, the whole strait never freezes, making it a very favorable mining environment 12 months of the year. That’s one thing that was very, very promising, is the fact that if we did make a discovery there and did find a mine, we’re at a port that’s capable of shipping 12 months a year versus Falconbridge’s Raglan, where they’re forced to ship about only eight months of the year.
Rick: Red Dog’s the same way.
Neil: That’s right.
Rick: Trucks, stockpiles and barges, then ship like crazy while you’ve got a short window.
Neil: It’s very advantageous to have a year round port, and like I say, the people there have been first rate to work for; it’s been a very good experience for us so far.
Rick: You can also work all year round, unlike Canada’s north, where you don’t work year round.
Neil: That’s correct, guys have run drill programs around the western side of Greenland all year, so drilling can occur throughout all kinds of conditions.
It seems like our piece of Greenland has all the right makings for the ore deposit that we’re looking for. It’s just a matter of finding it and we’ve got good people on the ground. We’ll be ready for next year.
Rick: Thanks Neil, a pleasure as always.
Disclosure: Richard Mills owns shares of North American Nickel, which is a sponsor of Richard’s site aheadoftheherd.com.