Estrella Resources will use a $1.327 million research-and-development (R&D) tax rebate from the Australian Taxation Office to repay a loan facility, with about $181,000 in surplus cash to be aimed at further exploring its Carr Boyd nickel project in Western Australia’s Goldfields region.
The rebate is part of the Australian Federal Government’s R&D tax incentive scheme that is designed to support innovation and growth by offsetting costs.
Estrella says it will use the funds to fully repay a facility it entered into with Radium Capital in May. The remaining money will be returned to its working capital for next year as it continues to push the boundaries at Carr Boyd.
The company previously received more than a $1 million tax offset for the R&D it conducted in relation to Carr Boyd during the previous financial year.
Management says its R&D work has helped it to form an improved genesis mode for the identification of mineralisation at the site. It has focused mostly on testing concepts and ideas relating to the formation and emplacement processes responsible for the Carr Boyd igneous complex that sits north-east of Kalgoorlie.
The Carr Boyd nickel mineralisation was first discovered in the late 1960s and produced 202,110 tonnes of ore at an average grade of 1.43 per cent nickel and 0.46 per cent copper between 1973-1977.
Estrella holds 259 square kilometres of contiguous tenure within the entire magmatic mafic-ultramafic layered complex and has been exploring it for nickel.
The most significant result for the company has come from reverse-circulation (RC) drilling earlier this year into its T5 target, which intersected 11m of mineralised basal contact zone, including 5m of matrix-style nickel and copper sulphides.
Estrella says it is confident it could be close to unlocking the nickel potential of the Carr Boyd area by combining downhole transient electromagnetic geophysical results with the advanced nickel sulphide geological modelling that formed part of its R&D work.
Management says it will be continuing its R&D program next year and plans to submit a further R&D support application at the end of the financial year.
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By Doug Bright
