Kuniko to focus on big nickel discoveries

Our European critical minerals Investment, Kuniko (ASX: KNI) has honed its strategy and decided what it plans to do after a $7.8M investment in KNI by one of the world’s largest carmakers.

The goal now is to make “district scale” nickel discoveries in Norway to feed a nickel hungry European EV market.

Nickel has been labelled a critical raw material by the EU and European nickel production has been in decline over the past two decades.

And yet, by one estimate, €1.2 billion of nickel was imported into Europe from Russia in the first half of this year, with Russia making up 90% of Europe’s nickel imports. (Source)

Luckily, Norway has introduced fast tracked mine permitting, meaning KNI is in a good spot to help reverse the trend of declining nickel production in Europe and the continent’s ongoing reliance on Russia.

Currently capped at ~$23M, KNI has already turned up some great cobalt results in Norway so far, but those results haven’t quite captured the market's attention - perhaps due to new battery chemistries designed to reduce cobalt consumption.

We’re hoping KNI’s additional focus on nickel will be just the ticket, particularly if it makes a major European nickel discovery.

KNI has been working with mining advisors, SLR Consulting to understand what they are working with in Norway.

KNI has so far been focused on the Ertelien nickel project within the wider Ringerike region in which KNI has a package of land:

(Source)

Working with SLR, KNI was able to build a 3D model of the existing non-JORC resource at Ertelien which will help with producing a JORC mineral resource estimate.

The interesting thing about Ertelien is that mineralisation remains open at depth, meaning that there could be more good nickel hits to be found down there.

KNI is armed with conductors from down hole electromagnetic surveys which could be pointing towards more nickel mineralisation in a certain direction:

(Source)

What’s next for KNI?

Again, KNI will be drilling at Ertelien in Q1 2024, getting a JORC resource together (hopefully a solid improvement on existing resource), running a geophysics survey over the larger Ringerike region and then likely drilling again for further discoveries.

🔃JORC resource at Ertelien nickel project

🔃New drilling in Q1 2024

🔲Upgrade nickel resource

🔲Run geophysics surveys over the rest of its larger nickel project area

🔲Drill out other targets on the rest of the nickel project