$13 million bucks, page-4

re: $13 million bucks-bounty gold mine interesting article -miningnews.net...It proves that having cash can help in a poor market..ask ATX

Nickel Australia seeks Bounty in hot Forrestania region

Sarah Belfield


Thursday, May 13, 2004
NICKEL Australia has formed a joint venture with private company Montague Resources covering the Bounty project in Western Australia's Forrestania greenstone belt, with plans in place for a substantial drilling program.

The Croesus Mining spin-out has paid $300,000 to Montague, with another $300,000 payable when the Bounty gold mine tenement is granted.

By sole funding exploration to the completion of a bankable feasibility by June 2014, Nickel Australia will earn a 70% interest in the project, excluding gold and silver. It can ultimately increase its interest to 80% by paying $4 million.

Once tenement applications are granted, Nickel Australia intends to begin an exploration program of surface and underground diamond drilling, along with detailed surface and down-hole EM surveys.

"What we need is to go through the native title process, get the tenements granted, and then we can start the exploration straight away," managing director Tony Rovira said.

"When we get on the ground it will be a very substantial program," he said.

The Bounty project area is 42 square kilometres and contains more than 24km of strike length for ultramafics that are prospective for nickel sulphides, including the northern extension of the unit that hosts the Cosmic Boy and Digger Rocks deposits �Esoon to be developed by Western Areas.

"Throughout that whole Forrestania belt, those ultramafic units are mineralised at numerous locations along their strike. The mineralisation can be [either] large and relatively low- to mid-grade, [or] it can be a lower tonnage with very high grades," Rovira said.

Previous work in the area was reportedly carried out largely by companies with a gold focus.

However, significant diamond drilling intercepts were made by Forrestania Gold and then reported in 1996 by LionOre, include 3.5m grading 1.19% nickel, 5.0m at 1.88%, and 4.2m at 1.11%. The intersections were made 250m east of the Bounty mine.

To date, TEM anomalies obtained in the mid-1990's identifying possible nickel sulphide bodies are untested.

Nickel Australia listed in December 2003 on a wave of investor interest, with its IPO raising $15 million after receiving subscriptions worth $27 million.