A Western Australian mine, has been sold by BHP Billiton for $250,000.
The West Musgrave nickel and copper project was purchased by Western Australia-based Cassini Resources.
The junior mining company picked up a swathe of deposits including the Nebo-Babel nickel-copper deposits as well as the Succoth copper play which are located near the South Australian border. Mineralisation at Succoth starts near surface, and a development scenario is likely to begin with open pit mining.
Cassini shelled out a mere $250,000 for the resources, although they will cough up over $10 million a year after production begins and be required to pay a 2 per cent royalty on output.
“WA mining jobs will be created”
Cassini intends to apply a new, innovative approach to developing the assets and their sights are set on becoming a significant base metal producer in a short space of time. Given the new acquisitions, it’s inevitable more WA mining jobs will be created.
They’ll start this new phase of mine development by conducting metallurgical testing to make sure higher-grade ore is recoverable and�by completing JORC compliant mineral resource estimates at Succoth, targetting further work across the entire project.
“a big win for the mining company”
Cassini managing director, Richard Bevans, said getting its hands on the deposits was a big win for the mining company.
“These are truly significant assets, and it is a great result for Cassini to have been successful in acquiring them.”�
“As a smaller company, we can apply a different, innovative approach to these assets, focusing on higher grade opportunities, with the aim of progressing their development to production as a priority.”�
BHP starts to shed its non-performing mining assets
The Cassini sales comes just days after BHP made a statement it intended to begin demerging non-core assets such as aluminium, nickel and bauxite. It’s thought more BHP projects which do not meet the mining company’s standards, like West Musgrave, could also be offloaded as BHP focuses it’s attention on iron ore, copper, petroleum and coking coal projects.
Former BC Iron chief executive and chairman of Cassini, Mike Young, said many companies could be in a position to take advantage of BHP`s asset sell-off plans.
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WA mining jobs – BHP sells nickel mine
