Amur Minerals Corporation (LON:AMC) has released an updated resource estimate on its Kun-Manie nickel-copper project in Eastern Russia.
The total resources are now standing at 101 million tonnes at an average grade of 0.76% nickel and 0.2% copper, resulting in an average nickel-equivalent grade of 1.03%. Kun-Manie now contains 1.7 billion pounds of nickel, 450 million pounds of copper and approximately half a million ounces of Platinum and Palladium. Kun-Manie also contains 33 million pounds of cobalt and even though this represents an in-situ value of $660M, the gross metal value per tonne of rock in the resource estimate is just $6/t (on a 100% recovery and payability basis) so whilst it’s an interesting kicker, it won’t really move the needle.
With this new resource estimate, the focus has shifted towards a combination of an open pit mine with an underground mining scenario. As approximately 80% of the resources are now located in the measured and indicated categories, it will be interesting to see Amur Minerals develop a new mine plan.
