Great Boulder, North Kalgurli Nickel Plans

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31762, 20 August 1968, Page 16

Great Boulder, North Kalgurli Nickel Plans

(N.Z Press A«9oelaHdn—Copyright?

PERTH, August 19.

The Great Boulder-North Kalgurli mining combine have won the race for second place in the Western Australian nickel stakes with the week-end announcement that they plan to start mining their Scotia reserves.

The reserves of 1.25 m tons of nickel ore will be mined at an initial rate of 10,000 tons a month. This will give the venture a working life of about 10 years on the present proven reserves. Since the Western Mining

Corporation started nickel mining there in June, 1967, a “nickel rush** has been under way in the dry desert area around the old gold mining town of Kalgoorlie. Great Boulder and North Kalgurli have become the

second combine with mining plans, but there are so many companies with “interesting" or "promising” nickel prospects in the area that they may have won the race by a narrow margin. The 10.000 tons of ore every four weeks will produce an annual 3500 to 4000 tons of nickel metal—worth about $2OOO a ton in its refined form.

The partnership, therefore, will produce mineral worth about s7m-8m a year from the Initial production programme.