afrol News, 4 March - Great and promising nickel deposit were mapped close to the Malagasy town of Fianarantsoa in the 1950s, but they have never been exploited. Now, a Canadian company is performing reconnaissance sampling at the site, confirming the deposits. This may eventually lead to a commercial production. Another nickel mining project close to Antananarivo is even closer to start.

The Vancouver-based company Diamond Fields - mainly involved in Namibian marine diamond mining - took interest in the Malagasy Valozoro property late last year as part of a strategy to pursue "diamond and nickel opportunities worldwide." In November, the company negotiated the exclusive right to acquire a 100 percent interest in the Valozoro property, located 60 kilometres north of Fianarantsoa in south-central Madagascar.

Already today, Diamond Fields is able to announce results from its initial reconnaissance sampling of the property. These results "confirm the presence of a high grade nickel deposit at the Valozoro site," the company said.

The reconnaissance sampling had collected samples through the lateritic profile by re-visiting 18 of more than 454 pits excavated on the property during 1956 and 1957. In addition, mineralisation had been sampled in road cuts and hillside exposures, and 170 of the old pits were located and logged for depth.

- Sampling returned grades between 0.61 percent and 1.77 percent nickel over thicknesses of 4 to 6 meters in 10 of the 18 pits sampled in this upper horizon, Diamond Fields said in a statement today. "Improved grades were seen where sampling reached the serpentinised lower part of the deposit, with intervals between 3.5 percent and 5.9 percent nickel in three pits."

However, samples collected in road cuts and slump exposures of the laterite horizon had "returned values as high as 8.56 percent nickel from the argillaceous serpentine of the exposed lower horizon," the press release said.

The initial reconnaissance sampling by Diamond Fields is the first activity on the Valozoro property since the company UGINE in the 1950's reported a resource of 3.7 million tonnes grading 1.75 percent nickel for 65,000 tonnes of contained nickel. According to the Canadians, however, "this is an historical resource estimate which does not comply with National Instrument 43-101 standards of disclosure."

Diamond Fields' exploration plans include a continuation of the sampling to build a more accurate and complete picture of nickel grade and tonnage, as well as prospecting the vicinity for additional mineralisation, the company announced today. Further, development plans for this deposit included "assessment of the costs to mine and ship concentrate from the site to in-country mills or offshore processors."

There is currently no commercial nickel mining in Madagascar, but the island is known to hold substantial nickel deposits and commercial mining seem sure to begin within short time. In addition to the Valozoro site, several nickel deposits have been found west and east of the Malagasy capital, Antananarivo.

According to the US company Phelps Dodge, at least one of these deposits - Ambatovy, approximately 130 kilometres east of Antananrivo - has a commercial potential. This deposit is estimated to contain a resource of 168,000 tonnes grading at 1.11 percent nickel. In August last year Phelps Dodge and its US partner Dynatec announced they had signed a joint venture to "evaluate development of the Ambatovy nickel laterite project."

Dynatec and Phelps Dodge announced that "Ambatovy is a large tonnage project that could become one of the world's lowest-cost nickel producers." A bankable feasibility study was to be completed by mid-2004, and the companies anticipated that "project development could begin shortly thereafter."

By staff writer

© afrol News

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