After a hiatus of six years where it successfully pursued a gold exploration and development strategy to navigate the previous nickel downturn, Kambalda mainstay Mincor Resources NL is back generating cash from its dominant nickel portfolio.
In the opening session of day two of Paydirt’s Australian Nickel Conference, Mincor Resources NL chairman Brett Lambert told delegates the company was ramping up production from multiple sources and expected to be back near nameplate capacity by the end of the current financial year.
Brett Lambert, Mincor Resources NL chairman
“First on the list, we are back in production of nickel … which is tremendous. That’s from two operations and it’s two new deposits, Minor discovered deposits that haven’t been previously mined until we started producing ore from them in the past couple of months,” Mr Lambert said.
“The other really important factor is we are back in cashflow from nickel sales, which is a great thing that happened in the June quarter of this year.
“Development is still ongoing, so we are still spending a fair bit of cash on that, and we are ramping up towards our nameplate capacity.”
Mincor is also once again a significant contributor to employment in the Kambalda region, with its workforce building back to 240 people to support the restart of production.
“It hasn’t been easy finding that many quality people in the workforce, but I am really pleased at the success we have had, and the success our contractor has had, in finding good people for our operations,” Mr Lambert said.
“We consider ourselves to be the premier nickel play on the ASX, as there are very few pure nickel plays around to the moment, particularly when you are talking about nickel sulphide.”
Mincor’s strategy spans two operating centres: the northern operations focused on the Kambalda Dome, which has produced more the 800,000 tonnes of nickel in metal over its lifetime, and is home to two newly discovered deposits for Mincor, being Durkin North and LN04a; and the Widgiemooltha Dome, where Mincor has operated a number of projects in the past, and which hosts the company’s new Cassini underground mine.
