Bush Diary Archives

2002

Bush Diary 3 December 2002

Craig Readhead
AGM, 28 November 2002

Heron AGM and Field Trip

Heron's AGM was held on 28 November 2002 at the Historic Hannans Club in Kalgoorlie. Some 40 locals and visitors from Perth and interstate attended.

The meeting included a presentation by Heron's Chairman, Mr Craig Readhead, who summarised the Company's corporate accomplishments for the past year and previewed some planned events for the forthcoming year.

Mr Readhead said "The Nickel Laterite sector in Australia has been a difficult area in which to operate during 2002, reflecting the performance challenges of the three "First Generation" Nickel Laterite projects.

"The Company views that its value can only increase as existing orebodies are depleted through production. The Board remains committed to development options at Goongarrie which minimise the capital and technical risk exposure for Heron.

"However, subject to appropriate terms, Heron is prepared to make its resources available to a new "Second Generation" standalone operation. Ongoing conceptual studies by both Heron and its consultants do in fact confirm that the standalone option is becoming more favoured, reflecting improvements to existing Nickel Laterite flowsheets.

"Shareholders will be aware that Heron recently announced that it had become a party to a Technical Cooperation Agreement with Jinchuan Group Limited and Minerals Processing and Marketing Pty Ltd, and that representatives of Jinchuan last week completed a highly successful site visit to the NKN Project."

The full text of Mr Readhead's presentation is available from our Presentations page.

Heron's Managing director, Mr Ian Buchhorn, also addressed the meeting, reviewing the Company's technical achievements for the year and providing details of the North Kalgoorlie Nickel Project. Exploration Manager, David Crook, summarised the activities of Heron's subsidary, Regent Resources Limited, who have been actively pegging tenements prospective for Base Metals on the Kimberley Plateau (Noril'sk style Nickel Sulphide), Lamboo Complex–Halls Creek (Epithermal Base Metals) and Yindarlgooda (Felsic VHMS setting east of Kalgoorlie).

Shareholders who attended the meeting were invited on a field trip to Goongarrie, with 14 electing to join us in The Bush.

In the evening, shareholders were invited to join Heron at its Christmas Party, held at Kalgoorlie's Oasis indoor aquatic centre. Congratulations to Dave and Ian, whose agility belies their years, in completing the "aquatic run".

Jinchuan Visit

We had the pleasure of a visit by a delegation from Jinchuan Nickel Mine and representatives of Gansu Province, China during November. Jinchuan is a $1.5 billion company and is China's largest nickel producer, with approximately 48,000t of nickel per year in addition to 60,000t of copper, 1,000t of cobalt, 35,000 ounces of PGMs and 350,000t of sulphuric acid.

The Delegation included Technical personnel from Jinchuan as well as the Gansu Development Planning Commission; and Economic and Trade Committee representatives.

The visit to the North Kalgoorlie Nickel Project ("NKN Project"), which includes Heron's Goongarrie and Kalpini projects, is part of the normal Due Diligence process, and concentrated on field reviews of existing drill holes, in particular at Goongarrie South.

The site visit will assist in determining whether future funding discussions are held with Jinchuan.

Bush Diary 10 October 2002 – Kalpini Project Update

Heron has completed 66 vertical reverse circulation drill holes on 10 drill lines for 2,231m. This drilling targeted an earlier intercept in ANRC030 of 23m at 2.10% Ni, with 0.17% Co, and infilled around chrysoprase workings previously unavailable for drilling.

The holes frequently encountered olivine meso to adcumulate komatiites, the prospective host for nickel laterite with good intersections of ore grade material predicted by the on site geologist, Simon Gobbett. Of note was the very high amounts of magnesite present in the weathered profile, even from surface. The magnesite is a significant discovery, being a potential acid neutraliser for the North Kalgoorlie Nickel Project.

This magnesite may reflect a very forsteritic olivine-rich "ultra" adcumulate precursor, such as that present at the Mt Keith Nickel Sulphide deposit. If Nickel Sulphides were to occur anywhere within the Kalpini Eastern Ultramafic (as distinct from the existing Acra Nickel Sulphide deposit hosted in the western ultramafic), then the Acra North Zone 2 "mega-channel" is a promising location. The ANRC 30 and 191 ultra-high grade nickel saprolite occurrences further confirm the uniqueness of Zone 2, and again support a potential Nickel Sulphide host environment. Acra North Zone 2 requires a deep "stratigraphic" drill hole to quantify the precise mineralogy of the Zone 2 protolith.

The eastern contact high grade saprolite zone will also require 40x20m drill out for detailed pit design at some future stage, which would be the ideal opportunity for a "stratigraphic" drill hole.

Bush Diary 21 August 2002 – Kalpini Project

Drilling has commenced at Kalpini, targeting a thickening (possibly a channel) within the eastern ultramafic at Acra North. It was at this prospect that earlier Heron drilling intersected 23m at 2.1% Ni and 0.17% Co, which still ranks as one of our highest grade intercepts to date. Simon is on the rig and is planning to be finished within two weeks.

Bush Diary 24 July 2002 – Adelaide Conference and Balladonia Project

During July Heron was invited to present a paper at the 16th Australian Geoscience Convention in Adelaide. This was a great honour, with delegates mainly representing academia and research organisations with a smaller number of mining industry representatives. David Crook presented a paper on the ore genesis of Goongarrie, explaining the formation of nickel laterite in general and the unique charactistics the Pamela Jean that has resulted in a very high grade and metallurgically uniform orebody.

En route to Adelaide reconnaissance was completed at the Balladonia Oil Shale Project. Access is excellent, and the Balladonia Roadhose is very well set up as an exploration base.

Bush Diary 18 April 2002 – Goongarrie Project

During April the 80x 80m infill drill program for Big Four was completed with a total of 17 RC drill holes for 667m which has delineated the northern extent of the high grade areas. Once the Big Four drilling was completed the drill rig was immediately mobilised to Goongarrie Hill for a selected 40x 40m drill program targeting shallow high grade nickel–cobalt intersections, completed for 30 RC drill holes for 814m.

The Big Four area returned significant intersections of siliceous goethite (CUS) over adcumulate ultramafic basement. This is similar to our Goongarrie Hill style mineralisation, the ore type being very comparable to the Cawse style siliceous upgradeable ore.

As expected Goongarrie Hill returned premium siliceous goethite (CUS), over adcumulate ultramafic basement. Some difficult drilling was encountered, but as always our drill contractors Deep Mining did a great job in providing the goods, in particular Brett the driller.

Bush Diary 16 April 2002

We have been very busy assisting Avoca with their float, and helping to set up their field exploration programs (initial drilling program planned for Wiluna on Lake Way).

A brief comment from the Smaller Companies Guide on Heron's precious metal demerger and Avoca's prospects.

It's good to see our de-merger strategy assessed favourably. With Avoca successfully listing on 15 April 2002, it's now back to nickel laterites for Heron, with the drill rig once again active at Goongarrie.

The current strength of the nickel price makes potential nickel laterite cash flows start to look attractive again.