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When we assayed the drill core, it actually assayed 21 metres at 7.8% nickel.
Our shares went from around 40 cents at the time to $2, virtually overnight.
Flying Fox has since developed into one of Australia’s best nickel mines.
We employ about 250 miners at Flying Fox and we’re now mining at over
1 kilometre depth. It all comes back to that initial discovery drill-hole and
the excitement and the game-changing event that it represented. Previous
geologists had drilled just as far as the granite and stopped – “There can’t be
any nickel below the granite”, but there was.
That’s the wonderful thing about exploration – people are still making
discoveries out there in areas which have been explored many times before.
Flying Fox mine was opened in May 2005. We’re now in our fifth year of
production, and producing around 15,000 tonnes of nickel per year. Flying
Fox is the second largest underground nickel mine in Australia and one of the
highest-grade nickel mines in the world. I guess if Flying Fox hadn’t been found,
and we hadn’t been lucky with ongoing exploration, then the money would have
run out. Western Areas might have just withered away. It’s the luck of the draw.
Where will Western Areas be in another few years?
The company has a very strong growth plan and some wonderful assets. We
operate two mines, we’re looking to commence our third and we’re excited
by the potential for more discoveries. We spend about $30 million a year on
drilling, the majority in Western Australia where we hold quite a dominant
position in a 500 kilometre long nickel province, which really has never been
explored properly.
Western Areas is basically a nickel only company, but in Finland we’re also
discovering zinc and copper. In Canada, with nickel comes copper, platinum
and palladium, and we have some interesting projects there.
Our priorities are low cost, long life production, then getting returns back to
shareholders, then growth.
MAKING A
NAME FOR
OURSELVES
IN IRON ORE
QR National is the world’s largest rail transporter of coal from mine
to port for export markets and the largest haulier of iron ore outside
of the Pilbara.
And this is just the beginning.
QR National is on track to treble our haulage of iron ore tonnages in
the next three years.
We are committed to operating in Western Australia’s emerging iron
ore regions and growing with new and existing customers.
ironore@qrnational.com.au
qrnational.com.au
JULIAN WITH SHAREHOLDER GARRY EAST
IN NICKEL CONCENTRATE SHED