watch this gold play, page-4

market confused over its gold assets i think because of its name "Nickel Australia" the market hasnt woken up to its gold assets -which is now under exploration

Nickel Australia turns to gold
Andrea Hayward
Friday, June 25, 2004
NICKEL Australia has turned to the gold sector and paid $59,500 to acquire a 100% interest in the Splinter gold exploration project near Esperance in Western Australia.

Splinter includes one granted exploration licence and adjoining applications for a further three exploration licences covering approximately 840 square kilometres.

Nickel Australia managing director Tony Rovira told MiningNews that while nickel remained the primary focus for the junior, diversification into other areas was attractive.

He said there were two reasons the company had acquired Splinter.

"One is the project (option) was acquired as part of the initial IPO and we felt it had good potential," Rovira said.

"Secondly we are looking to diversify into putting some of the resources of the company into gold. We are interested to look at all opportunities and if the right opportunity comes along we'll look at it (gold or otherwise)."

Nickel Australia will be targeting a large gold-in-calcrete geochemical anomaly located at the intersection of major structural trends. An airborne magnetic survey, detailed surface geochemical sampling and aircore drilling is expected during the second half of this year.

Rovira said up to $80,000 would be budgeted for exploration at Splinter in the new financial year.

Splinter's vendor is Ron Smit, who recently sold his projects to Marengo Mining, where he works as exploration manager.

Nickel Australia listed in December last year as a spin off from Croesus Mining.

After an overwhelming response from the market saw the company raise $15 million through the placement of 60 million shares at 25c - the IPO was seeking $10 million but received some $27 million worth of applications.

Nickel Australia has three major nickel projects �Ethe Norseman project, 200km south of Kalgoorlie, the Beete project, 60km south of Norseman and Davyhurst, 130km north of Kalgoorlie.

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