Lockerby East Property, Ontario, Canada

• Highlights

  • Potential for large tonnage open pit in Sudbury Basin
  • Agreement with Vale Canada to consolidate the near surface West Graham and Crean Hill 3 deposits
  • Historic resource highlights the potential of the combined property
  • Excellent potential for high-grade massive sulphide at depth
  • Ongoing drilling campaign continues to return positive results
  • WG-23-026: 2.48% Ni and 0.64% Cu over 7.9 metres

• Overview

  The Lockerby East Property is located ~20 km west of Sudbury, Ontario within the southwest corner of the Sudbury Basin. The property hosts 2 Ni-Cu deposits, the near surface West Graham Deposit and the high-grade underground LKE Deposit (formerly the Lockerby East Deposit). Located in the heart of the Sudbury Mining District where nine mines are currently in operation and two more are in the development phase. The region benefits from its proximity to well-developed transportation infrastructure including roads, railways, and electrical grid. In addition, Lockerby East is situated close to processing, smelting and refining assets which include two mills, two smelters and one nickel refinery. Local operators include global mining corporations Vale, Glencore and KGHM.

  The 2024 Mineral Resource Estimate ("MRE") for West Graham includes Indicated Resources of 224.8 million pounds of contained nickel and 155.0 million pounds of contained copper and further Inferred Resources of 86.2 million pounds of contained nickel and 57.5 million pounds of contained copper.

  With the recently announced MRE, the West Graham Deposit has the potential to become an economically significant near surface resource. SPC Nickel aims to advance the West Graham Deposit and become Sudbury’s newest Nickel producer.

• Current Program

  In May 2024 SPC NIckel announced the intiation of its spring/summer drill program at West Graham comprising ~2,500 metres of drilling over 40 holes. The drill program's objectives include:

  • Fully defining the nickel-copper resource within the limits of a conceptual starter open-pit
  • Completion of preliminary geotechnical work on the sulphide mineralization and surrounding host rocks for inclusion within the engineering design of the pit wall slopes.
  • Refining the West Graham economic viability and development plans.

  The program will provide information toward evaluating West Graham as a lowstrip ratio, higher-grade starter pit. SPC Nickel is focused on providing the geological data required to more precisely define the economic potential we believe exists across the entire Lockerby East Property. To date (August 2024), assay results for 12 (645 metres) of the 19 holes (1,150 metres) completed have been received including: 

  • Hole WG-24-087, intersected 1.05% Ni and 0.30% Cu over 16.0 metres from 32.0 to 48.0 metres. This interval is part of a wider interval that returned 0.63% Ni and 0.24% Cu over 41.0 metres from 10.0 to 41.0 metres
  • Hole WG-24-088, intersected 1.41% Ni and 0.33% Cu over 16.0 metres from 20.0 to 36.0 metres. This interval is part of a wider interval that returned 0.87% Ni and 0.32% Cu over 37.95 metres from 9.05 to 47.0 metres 

  To view details of the maiden Mineral Resource Estimate, click here.

  To view detailed sections across the West Graham Property, click here.

  To view 2023 Phase 1 and Phase 2 assay results to date in a PDF, click here.

• Mineral Resource Estimate

  • View PDF

• History

  The Lockerby Mine was put into production by Falconbridge in 1971. In 2004, Falconbridge decided to put the mine on care and maintenance. In 2005, First Nickel acquired the property and resumed production of the Lockerby Mine and Lockerby East deposits. In 2005, First Nickel entered into an Option Agreement with Landore Resources on the adjacent West Graham Property. In 2009 and 2010, First Nickel issued new update resource estimates for both the West Graham and Lockerby East Deposit. In 2015, First Nickel closed the Lockerby Mine and entered into receivership due to low metal prices and production issues. During a period of 44 years, from 1971 to 2015, the Lockerby Mine including Lockerby East produced an estimated 9.6Mt of ore grading 1.83% Ni and 1.08% Cu.

  In 2016, SPC Nickel announced the acquisition of the Lockerby East and West Graham properties. The Lockerby Mine itself was not acquired. In 2016, Bore Hole Electromagnetic surveys (BHEM) identified significant geophysical anomalies at depth below the Lockerby East Deposit. In 2022, a drill program was completed to expand and define the West Graham Deposit near surface. Additional work completed by SPC Nickel includes auditing the historical drillhole database, updating the coordinate systems to NAD83, confirming collar locations and patent boundaries, surface mapping and sampling, and updating the 3D model.

  On January 23, 2023, SPC Nickel announced the signing of an Agreement with Vale Canada (“Vale”) granting SPC Nickel the right to earn an 100% interest in Vale’s Crean Hill 3 Property that is located adjacent and contiguous to SPC Nickel’s West Graham Deposit. As an advanced project, the combination of the West Graham and Crean Hill 3 deposits is a transformational opportunity for SPC Nickel. The historical mineral resources on these properties form one contiguous near-surface deposit.

  In October 2023, SPC Nickel announced the completion of its resource definition drill program at West Graham which comprised sixty-seven drill holes over 14,180 metres. Phase 1 included 5,338 metres in twenty-seven holes while Phase 2 comprised 8,842 metres in forty holes.

  In January 2024, the Company released its maiden Mineral Resource Estimate (“MRE”) for the West Graham Project.

• Geology and Mineralization

  Rock types

  The Lockerby East Property is situated in the southwest portion of the Sudbury Igneous Complex (SIC) and straddles the contact between the Huronian Supergroup rocks to the south and the crystalline igneous rocks of the SIC to the north. The Huronian rocks present within the property are the Creighton Granite rocks to the south. The northern portion of the property contains the basal norite rocks of the SIC. Slight compositional and textural variations within the norite and granite rocks exist but overall, these two rock types represent the majority of the rocks present within the property. Typically, along the contact there is a thin breccia layer. This layer can be noritic with granite fragments or granitic with noritic fragments. Occasionally large and small granitic fragments, xenoliths, are observed farther from the contact within the norite rocks to the north and above. Two younger generations of mafic dykes crosscut through the entire property trending east west and northwest southeast.

  Metamorphism and deformations

  The whole area has experienced several deformation and metamorphic events which have affected the rocks. Folding and faulting of the country rocks prior to the emplacement of the SIC deformed the Huronian rocks and the Archean rocks further to the north. The SIC itself caused significant deformation during emplacement resulting in the melting and brecciation of the country rock, a metamorphic aureole around the SIC contact, and the emplacement of the offset dykes around the SIC. Later events folded, faulted, and metamorphosed the rocks further resulting in what we see today.

  Deposits

  The West Graham and LKE deposits are within a shallow embayment in the basal contact of the SIC and are hosted in Norite and Sublayer layers along or near the contact. At surface where the West Graham Deposit outcrops the SIC contact dips 45° to the north, but gradually the contact steepens until it rolls over dipping to the south. This rollover/ fold is associated with the LKE Deposit at depth. Similar rollovers associated with mineralization are modeled further below the LKE deposit which have yet to be adequately explored.

  Mineralization

  Two distinct types of sulfide mineralization exist on the property. Disseminated blebs and net textured sulfides hosted in norite above the contact make up most of the mineralization within the West Graham Deposit. Semi-massive and massive sulfides veins along the contact make up most of the mineralization within the LKE Deposit. Although these mineralization types are distinct, they are often spatially related as the West Graham style mineralization is observed above and around the LKE Deposit, and occasionally small stringers are observed along the contact below the West Graham Deposit.

  A third type of mineralization rarely observed is in the form of massive sulfides hosted within a Sublayer/norite hosted breccia unit. This third type of mineralization has been observed in only a few holes (e.g. WG-23-026 and WG-23-063) and is thought to be small pods of mineralized Sublayer within the West Graham Deposit.

• Maps and Figures

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

• Photo Gallery