Vancouver, July 19, 2021 – FPX Nickel Corp. (FPX-TSX.V) (“FPX” or the “Company”) is pleased to announce the appointment of Randy MacGillivray as the Company’s Manager, Environment and Government Affairs. Mr. MacGillivray, formerly Regional Manager, Environment and Regulatory Affairs for Centerra Gold, will support FPX’s senior leadership in managing the environmental, community and government engagement efforts of the Company’s PEA-stage Decar Nickel District in central British Columbia.
“We are happy to add Randy to our fast-growing team and look forward to drawing on his deep experience in managing environmental and community engagement efforts for mining operations in British Columbia,” commented Martin Turenne, FPX Nickel’s President and CEO. “Randy has a strong track record of respective and collaborative engagement with First Nations governments on several B.C. projects and mines, and has played a hands-on management role in advancing projects through the environmental assessment and permitting process both in B.C. and abroad. As we move our flagship Baptiste project toward a preliminary feasibility study, he will play a critical role in ensuring the Company maintains a high standard of environmental stewardship and mutually beneficial collaboration with our First Nations partners.”
Mr. MacGillivray has over 25 years’ experience in permitting and community consultation and engagement activities at mining projects and operations in British Columbia and abroad. In his previous role at Centerra Gold’s Mount Milligan Mine and Kemess project in British Columbia, he was responsible for negotiating, implementing and maintaining compliance with Impact Benefit Agreement commitments and Environmental Assessment Certificate conditions. This experience included developing and leading joint implementation and environmental management committees with impacted First Nations in central and northern B.C. Prior to joining Centerra, Mr. MacGillivray occupied several senior environmental and community engagement roles in the mining industry, including as Director, Environment and Sustainability for Thompson Creek Metals Company, as Manager, Environment for Coeur Mining and as Environmental Superintendent for Barrick Gold’s Eskay Creek and Snip Mines in northwestern B.C. Mr. MacGillivray holds a Bachelor of Science in Geology from the University of British Columbia.
FPX has granted 250,000 stock options to Mr. MacGillivray. The stock options have an exercise price of $0.50 per share and will expire on July 19, 2026.
About the Decar Nickel District
The Company’s Decar Nickel District claims cover 245 km2 of the Mount Sidney Williams ultramafic/ophiolite complex, 90 km northwest of Fort St. James in central British Columbia. The District is a two-hour drive from Fort St. James on a high-speed logging road.
Decar hosts a greenfield discovery of nickel mineralization in the form of a naturally occurring nickel-iron alloy called awaruite (Ni3Fe), which is amenable to bulk-tonnage, open-pit mining. Awaruite mineralization has been identified in four target areas within this ophiolite complex, being the Baptiste Deposit, and the B, Sid and Van targets, as confirmed by drilling in the first three plus petrographic examination, electron probe analyses and outcrop sampling on all four. Since 2010, approximately US $24 million has been spent on the exploration and development of Decar.
Of the four targets in the Decar Nickel District, the Baptiste Deposit, which was initially the most accessible and had the biggest known surface footprint, has been the focus of diamond drilling since 2010, with a total of 82 holes and over 31,000 metres of drilling completed. The Sid target was tested with two holes in 2010 and the B target had a single hole drilled in 2011; all three holes intersected nickel-iron alloy mineralization over wide intervals with DTR nickel grades comparable to the Baptiste Deposit. The Van target was not drill-tested at that time as rock exposure was very poor prior to more recent logging activity.
As reported in the current NI 43-101 resource estimate, having an effective date of September 9, 2020, the Baptiste Deposit contains 1.996 billion tonnes of indicated resources at an average grade of 0.122% DTR nickel, containing 2.4 million tonnes of nickel, plus 593 million tonnes of inferred resources with an average grade of 0.114% DTR nickel, containing 0.7 million tonnes of nickel, both reported at a cut-off grade of 0.06% DTR nickel. Mineral resources are not mineral reserves and do not have demonstrated economic viability.
About FPX Nickel Corp.
FPX Nickel Corp. is focused on the exploration and development of the Decar Nickel District, located in central British Columbia, and other occurrences of the same unique style of naturally occurring nickel-iron alloy mineralization known as awaruite. For more information, please view the Company’s website at www.fpxnickel.com or contact Martin Turenne, President and CEO, at (604) 681-8600 or ceo@fpxnickel.com.
On behalf of FPX Nickel Corp.
“Martin Turenne”
Martin Turenne, President, CEO and Director
