Inside the race to crack elusive WA nickel-copper code

One-hit wonders! Ahh, the musical memories that come flooding back.

Who could forget masterpieces like the Monster Mash by Bobby “Boris” Pickett and the Crypt Kickers or Video Killed The Radio Star by The Buggles? Such classics, we hear you say.

Rolling Stone magazine conducted its own poll a few years back and their music-loving readers voted in many 80s classics such as My Sharona by The Knack and The Vapors’ Turning Japanese, which featured among the top 10 one-hit wonders of all time. And who could forget the top two list-busters, with Dexys Midnight Runners’ Come on Eileen and a-ha’s Take on Me sitting at the top of the pile.

So, what do one-hit wonders from the music world have to do with the world of mining?

Well, there is a widely-renowned mining region in Western Australia that is said by many to have huge nickel-copper deposits within its massive grounds. Yet, it has only ever revealed one big discovery – or one massive chart-topping mining hit, if you like.

The Albany-Fraser Orogen that extends for a minimum 1200km in length along the southern margin of the Archean Yilgarn Craton is the puzzle many explorers have tried to solve since Sirius Resources made its ground-shaking Nova nickel-copper-cobalt discovery back in 2012. Sirius then followed up with its nearby Bollinger discovery shortly after, providing the company with the region’s first massive nickel-copper project.

To the end of the 2024 financial year, the huge resource has been mined and processed to the tune of 1.66 million tonnes of metal-in-concentrate, producing 186,400 tonnes of nickel, 78,300 tonnes of copper and 6500 tonnes of cobalt.

That one giant discovery has seen many big and not-so-big mining companies trek to the area in search of a similar Sirius-like discovery in their respective territories.

Nova-Bollinger was said to be part of a new “province”, which begs the question, where are the other discoveries in the region? And was it simply a one-hit wonder?

Plenty of those who have come looking for nickel riches have left the Albany-Fraser region disappointed (to say the least) with a lot less money remaining in the exploration budget.

Sure, the region has also unearthed the huge Tropicana gold operation, jointly-owned by global giant AngloGold Ashanti (70 per cent) and local gold producer Regis Resources (30 per cent). With gold reserves of 1.57 million ounces and production of about four million ounces since 2012, Tropicana is an operation that is not to be sneezed at.

Many other ASX-listed explorers have put in some hard yards in the region, but are still working at making that game-changing discovery. Companies including Legend Mining, Boadicea Resources, Enterprise Metals and Galileo Mining have persevered in the region for years in the hope of hitting it big.

The region has also been responsible for a few smaller nickel-copper deposits in the past decade, including the Silver Knight deposit unearthed by the Creasy Group, about 35km north-east from Nova-Bollinger. It comprises a respectable 4.2 million-tonne resource at 0.8 per cent nickel, 0.6 per cent copper and 0.04 per cent cobalt.

Legend has also been chipping away at its Rockford project, 150km north-east of Nova-Bollinger and has compiled a resource of 1.45 million tonnes going at 1.14 per cent nickel, 0.74 per cent copper and 0.07 per cent cobalt.

And let’s not forget that there is money in a huge nickel-copper find. Big money.

After the 2012 discovery, Sirius was bought out in 2015 for $1.8 billion by IGO, one of the big nickel-lithium players in WA. IGO added to its mineral haul in 2021 by securing 100 per cent of the Silver Knight project from the Creasy Group for $45 million, in addition to a suite of prospective tenements in which it will own 65 per cent.

The Creasy Group made a fortune from the Nova discovery due to its near 35 per cent stake in Sirius.

In geological terms, the Nova-Bollinger deposit has been described by IGO as a magmatic nickel-copper deposit because the metal sulphides are derived from igneous magmas and/or their associated surface erupted lavas.

Some people believe the secret to unveiling a mammoth discovery in the region is to find a big mafic-intrusive unit within the belt. Nova was believed to have been found by drilling coincident geochemical and electromagnetic anomalies on the north-western side of an “eye-like” structural feature observed in regional and magnetic data.

One ASX-listed company that is up for the challenge of trying to find the next “nickel-monster” along those lines is Terrain Minerals. It believes it has the right ground, the right features and the know-how to tame the terrain.

Interestingly, Terrain appears to have defined a similar eye-like feature to the one that led to the Nova discovery and a kit-bag full of bedrock conductors at its promising Lort River nickel project that sits about 300km south of Nova-Bollinger. It has completed ground electromagnetic (EM) surveys and conducted geochemical soil sampling along magnetic lines, with plans to unleash the drill bit later this year.

Recently raising more than $1 million from investors, with several directors also tipping in sizeable sums in a show of faith for the company’s prospects, it is cashed-up to hit Lort River hard with its upcoming drill program.

Most of the targets are on farmland, so management is presently arranging land access agreements. Once obtained, it will apply for a program of works (PoW) to enable drilling.

The Nova-Bollinger project sits in the northern region of the Albany-Fraser Belt. Most of the companies which flocked to the area after the discovery grabbed ground in the northern half of the belt as that is where Sirius had its vast landholdings.

IGO and big British multinational miner Anglo American have sizeable swathes of land in the region locked away and interestingly, the former has stated publicly that it believes the whole of the region to be prospective for nickel – not just the northern half.

Terrain Minerals managing director Justin Virgin said: “My view is that there have only been three mafic intrusive units potentially found in the belt. We were looking for a mafic-intrusive unit that’s come up from the bowels of the earth and now think we have one with Lort River.”

Virgin added that he believes IGO’s success with Nova shows the ore bodies in the region to be part of a broad, mineral-rich region. Like IGO, he sees potential for the southern part to be just as prospective.

But Terrain also has its own theories about the region, believing the huge mafic intrusive units forced up within the earth’s crust from internal pressures is the real answer to finding a great nickel-copper deposit.

The company’s geology team has invested time in the past few years in following IGO’s release of information into the public domain because the big nickel-lithium miner is the only one in the region “walking the walk” with nickel production. Terrain’s geologists have tried to learn as much as possible about the style of mineralisation that makes Nova special.

Management sees Lort River’s geological setting to be similar in its length and width dimensions to Nova-Bollinger. Its recent airborne geophysical survey provided compelling evidence of the promising outlook for the southern half, with five high-priority bedrock conductors identified.

Two conductors sit within a Nova lookalike “eye-feature” on its western edge at Lort River, giving Terrain confidence that it may be sitting on a company-making discovery. To bolster that belief, leading consultancy firm Southern Geophysics has identified the Lort River “eye” to be a mafic-intrusive geological feature.

Terrain was delayed in gaining access to the Lort River site, due to unseasonal heavy downpours in the region. It was planning to complete the ground surveys and soil sampling program earlier this year, then the heavens opened and left little option but to wait for the ground to dry.

Legend was also hit hard with unforeseen weather delays at its Rockford project.

After the March deluge, another significant rain event in late June continued the frustrating wait for local explorers keen to ramp-up activities. Legend was finally able to kick off its field program about six weeks ago and Terrain recently completed its exploration programs that were revealed to be “eye-opening”.

The Lort River project extends for more than 640 square kilometres of prospective exploration acreage, centred about 50km north-west of the southern port city of Esperance and is about 300km south-west of the Nova-Bollinger project.

The Albany-Fraser Orogen is believed to have been created between 1.1 billion and 2.6 billion years ago, resulting from an orogenic event. Tectonic history suggests the event occurred as the combined North Australia Craton-West Australia Craton collided with the East Antarctic-South Australian Craton.

The Orogen is assumed to have then had its mafic intrusions emplaced within that timeframe and has the remnants of two extensive basin systems, having been subjected to several major tectonic events. Geologists say the Orogen has endured a long-duration, widespread mafic magmatic event involving high-temperature metamorphism and deformation.

Later events included mainly felsic magmatism, in addition to further high and moderate temperature metamorphism and intense deformation.

An orogen or orogenic belt, is a zone of the Earth’s crust affected by orogeny. It means that the belt develops when a continental plate crumples, a factor often associated with subduction collisions, and is then uplifted to form one or more mountain ranges.

A couple of years after the Nova-Bollinger discovery, Sirius’ then-managing director Mark Bennett contributed to an article for the Society of Economic Geologists. He reflected on what he believes junior explorers must do to be effective and how their success is influenced by the degree to which three factors coincide – those being motive, means and opportunity.

Terrain would appear to have the motive for a huge discovery, while the means have come with its latest cash raise and soon it will have the opportunity with the drill bit. But only time will tell if it can be the one to find the key to what has become a somewhat hard-to-unravel code.

Is your ASX-listed company doing something interesting? Contact: matt.birney@businessnews.com.au