Kuniko hits nickel in Norway, plenty of assays to come
Our European battery metals Investment, Kuniko (ASX:KNI), confirmed it has hit high grade nickel at its brownfields project in Norway.
The headline result is as follows:
25.1 m, grading 1.14 % Nickel, 1.20 % Copper, 0.07 % Cobalt, and 0.25 g/t 3E.
This result is the follow up confirmation to the massive sulphides previously observed by KNI.
It’s a solid nickel grade, has significant meterage, a strong copper grade, with a healthy side of cobalt and 3E results (i.e. platinum group elements).
Below you can see the result mapped out below surface at KNI’s nickel project:
As these assay results are from a twin hole, the strong grades and meterage were largely expected. But at the same time, it very effectively firms up KNI’s understanding of its nickel project in Norway.
The results are an important building block for the Ertelien project, where KNI is aiming to put out a JORC resource.
The advantage of a JORC resource is that it will enable battery metals players in Europe to better value KNI’s assets relative to other assets in Europe.
We expect Europe to be particularly hungry for quality domestic nickel projects that can feed its rapidly accelerating EV/decarbonisation push.
Following today’s results, we think KNI’s nickel project is shaping up nicely as a potentially valuable addition to Europe’s battery metals push - something which has recently been underlined by the announcement of the EU Critical Raw Materials Act.
KNI now has a large volume of newsflow in the pipeline after it moved to acquire three promising James Bay Canadian lithium projects.
While we wait for further exploration work in Canada, we can look forward to an extensive series of assays from its Norwegian projects.
What’s next for KNI?
KNI has now completed drilling across its cobalt, nickel and copper projects. We know that KNI has a good cobalt project on its hands as the company has already announced five out of six drillholes have visible cobalt. We’re also eager to see the results of its copper drilling, which is a bit of a wildcard for KNI. KNI says Q2 is when the assays from these drilling programs will be available.
