Status: | Advanced exploration/past production stage |
Location: | 28 km southwest of Sudbury |
Commodity: | Nickel, copper, platinum-group metals (PGM) |
Ownership: | 16.5% shareholder of Lonmin Canada - 100% interest in Denison project |
Current exploration activities: | None |
Mineral resources: | NI 43-101 mineral resource estimate in Q4 2020 |
The Denison project covers 2.5 km2 and is located the southwest corner of the Sudbury Basin, approximately 28 kilometres west-southwest of the town of Sudbury, Ontario. Wallbridge has a 16.5% ownership interest in privately-held Lonmin Canada (a wholly-owned subsidiary of Lonmin Limited - a wholly-owned subsidiary of Sibanye-Stillwater) which has a 100% interest in the Denison nickel-copper-PGM project near Sudbury. Wallbridge is the operator of the project.
The Denison project is also known as the past producing Crean Hill mine (closed in 2002). More than 16 Mt of ore grading 1.22% Ni, 1.11% Cu, 1.92 g/t total precious metals and 5.04 g/t Ag was produced from the underground and 1 Mt grading 0.73% Ni, 0.56% Cu and 0.025% Co was produced from the open pit.
The project hosts multiple, well-defined PGM-rich zones that were explored after the operations were suspended. Recent drilling highlights include 1.69% Ni, 2.28% Cu and 2.37 g/t Pt, Pd and Au over 8.23 m in the 99 Shaft zone and 1.87% Ni, 0.95% Cu and 3.14 g/t Pt, Pd and Au over 6.16 m in the 109 West zone.
The next step is to combine the historical resources with the new drilling information into a NI 43-101 compliant resource estimate for the end of 2020 and advance the project forward by completing an economic study.
The Denison project, previously known as the Crean Hill mine operated intermittently from 1905 until 2002. The mine produced ~16 Mt of ore grading 1.22% Ni, 1.11% Cu, 1.92 g/t total precious metals and 5.04 g/t Ag from underground and 1 Mt grading 0.73% Ni, 0.56% Cu and 0.025% Co from the open pit.
From 2003 to 2017, the Lonmin Canada/Vale joint venture worked on defining the strike and plunge extensions of the Crean Hill 9400 Zone, the 99 zone, the 101 Zone the 109 HW Zone and discovering 109 FW Zone. Highlight intersections from this drilling included 1.69% Ni, 2.28% Cu and 2.37 g/t Pt, Pd and Au (total precious metals, “TPM”) over 8.23 m in the 99 Shaft zone and 1.87% Ni, 0.95% Cu and 3.14 g/t TPM over 6.16 m in the 109 West zone.
The Denison project is located in the South Range of the Sudbury Basin, straddling the contact of the Sudbury Igneous Complex (“SIC”) with the footwall (FW) Elsie Mountain Formation. At surface, the contact dips approximately 80 degrees to the north, but undulates and is overturned at depth, dipping steeply to the south. The Elsie Mountain Formation is the basal unit of the Elliot Lake Group of the Huronian Supergroup, consisting mainly of metamorphosed basalt that is significantly chlorite altered with variable epidote and rare talc. The historical Crean Hill Mine (contact-style massive to semi-massive Ni-Cu-PGM) lies on the property. The Crean Hill mine is situated within a large trough structure at the base of the SIC that contains a number of ore deposits including Crean Hill Main Orebody, Crean Hill Intermediate Orebody, Crean Hill West Orebody, Ellen Mine and Lockerby Mine, each sitting in a terrace within the larger trough. The terraces acted as traps for the sublayer norite and contact mineralization.
The Denison 109 FW deposit rests in the immediate footwall of the historic Crean Hill mine, with little or no separation between the norite hosted semi-massive to massive mineralization and the much lower sulphide Pt-Pd-Au mineralization in the footwall, hosted primarily in metabasalt. The mineralization is often associated with partial-melt veinlets, thought to be a thermal effect from the emplacement of the SIC and occurs with veinlets of chalcopyrite-pyrrhotite and local pentlandite near the SIC contact.
The 9400 Zone is coincident to and continuous with the mineralization of the Crean Hill West Orebody, where contact-style Ni-Cu rich ores have, to a great extent, been mined out. The 9400 Zone mineral envelope, as currently defined, has a strike length of 250 metres, ranges from 3 to 39 metres in width and extends from 150 to 750 metres below surface. The Ni-Cu rich and PGM poor eastern part of the 9400 Zone is in contact with the SIC, trending obliquely away from the contact into the footwall to the west. Mineralization at the eastern part consists mostly of semi-massive to massive contact-style pyrrhotite, pentlandite, and chalcopyrite. Towards the west, into the footwall, the PGM grades increase whereas the Ni and Cu grades decrease. Here, the sulfide mineralization occurs as stringers, fracture controlled within quartz-carbonate veins, disseminations within the host rock and disseminations within quartz-amphibole veins-patches that are interpreted to be partial melts.
The historic resources are typical contact and footwall-type Ni-Cu-PGM mineralization showing potential economic grades. All resource reports were internal company resource estimates that were generated for different orebodies on the project and are not compliant with NI 43-101 requirements.
Zone |
Source |
Year |
Completed by |
Method |
Cut-off |
Category |
Tonnes |
Cu % |
NI |
Co |
PT g/t |
PD g/t |
Au g/t |
TPM g/t |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
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|
|
|
(000’s) |
|
% |
% |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
109FW |
Historic1 2015 Lonmin Internal Non-NI-43-101 Resource Estimate |
2015 |
Lonmin |
OK |
C$73 NSR2 |
Indicated |
384 |
0.32 |
0.21 |
0.007 |
3.33 |
1.71 |
0.99 |
6.03 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Inferred |
4.4 |
0.42 |
0.33 |
0.014 |
1.54 |
0.84 |
0.5 |
2.88 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Exploration Target3 |
700 - 2,100 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
1.0-2.0 |
9400 |
Historic2 2016 Lonmin Internal Non-NI-43-101 Resource Estimate |
2017 |
Lonmin |
OK |
2g/t Cut-off |
Indicated |
191 |
1.08 |
0.77 |
0.02 |
2.64 |
3.29 |
0.85 |
6.78 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Inferred |
378 |
0.61 |
0.51 |
0.02 |
3.68 |
4.53 |
1.33 |
9.54 |
101 Zone |
Historic Vale 2012 Internal PFS Report and Block Model data |
2011 |
Vale |
ID |
0-C$300/tonne |
Exploration Target3,4 |
150-860 |
0.6 -1.3 |
0.8-1.7 |
0.03 - 0.06 |
0.3-0.5 |
0.1-0.2 |
0.1 |
0.5-0.8 |
Contact Remnants |
Vale 2012 Internal PFS Report and Block Model data |
2011 |
Vale |
OK |
0-C$300/tonne |
Exploration Target3,4 |
410-7700 |
0.4-0.8 |
0.6-2.0 |
0.02 - 0.05 |
0.2-0.5 |
0.1-0.3 |
0.1 |
0.5-1.0 |
109HW |
Vale 2012 Internal PFS Report and Block Model data |
2011 |
Vale |
OK |
0-C$300/tonne |
Exploration Target3,4 |
270-730 |
1.0 -1.5 |
0.9-1.4 |
0.03 - 0.05 |
0.8-1.1 |
0.9-1.5 |
0.5-0.7 |
2.1-3.3 |
109 West |
No Resource Estimate |
|
|
|
|
Exploration Target |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
99 Shaft Zone |
No Resource Estimate |
|
|
|
|
Exploration Target |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Total |
|
|
|
|
|
Indicated |
575 |
0.57 |
0.4 |
0.01 |
3.1 |
2.23 |
0.94 |
6.28 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Inferred |
382 |
0.61 |
0.51 |
0.02 |
3.66 |
4.49 |
1.32 |
9.46 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Exploration Target |
1,530 -11,390 |
0.6 - 0.9 |
0.7-1.9 |
0.03 - 0.05 |
0.4-0.5 |
0.4 |
0.1-0.2 |
1.0-1.2 |
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Position Title | Status | Location |
---|---|---|
Clerk | Full time permanent | Fenelon |
Operations Manager | Full time permanent | Fenelon |