KNI hits more nickel, and returns high grade copper rock chips

Today our EU critical minerals Investment Kuniko (ASX: KNI) reported assay results from its 2024 drilling program at the Ertelien nickel-copper-cobalt project in Norway, highlighting extensive disseminated sulfide mineralization and high-grade massive/semi-massive zones.

All of this should feed into an improved Mineral Resource Estimate (MRE) at the project, with some of the drill highlights below:

• 48.5m @ 0.22% NiEq from 30.5m in hole KNI_ER007
• 301.2m @ 0.16% NiEq from 102.2m in hole KNI_ER008b
• 6.3m @ 0.47% NiEq in hole KNI_ER011
• 2.7m @ 0.49% NiEq and 5.7m @ 0.39% NiEq in hole KNI_ER012
• Resampling of historical drill core returned 80.6m @ 0.18% NiEq

That MRE is due early Q4 of this year.

As we noted in a recent weekend edition, last we checked, the EU still gets ~16% of its nickel from Russia:

(Source)

This continued reliance on an actively hostile trading partner for nickel will certainly be troubling the EU, and we hope KNI can quickly step into the breach in the coming years, with a new Zero Carbon nickel mine.

In June, KNI published the results of an EM survey which turned up some large conductors close to its existing JORC resource.

We’re particularly interested in KNI following up these EM conductors as the company tests its Voisey’s Bay hypothesis, that the area where today’s results come (Ertelien) from, are part of a much larger nickel system that extends over KNI’s larger project footprint (Ringerike).

Ringerike is the larger project area, and the Ertelien project to the south of this project area makes up just a small portion of Ringerike:

(Source)

Also, at another of KNI’s Norwegian projects - we got a first wind of some potential copper-zinc targets to test:

(Source)

These high-grade copper and zinc assay results from field work at its Vaga Copper-Zinc Project in Norway mean that KNI could have a new VMS-style deposit on its hands.

While it is early days, KNI indicated that it is most interested in the Tesskrokan target which is located around many historic mine workings:

With 1.5km of potential strike to work with, we await further updates on this particular project.

What’s next for KNI?

🔄 Commence field work following up on EM survey (ongoing)

🔲 Upgrade nickel resource (expected by Q4-2024)

🔲 Early stage feasibility studies (start end of 2024)

🔄 Outcome of “Strategic Project Status” application (EU Critical Raw Materials Act)