Vancouver, September 20, 2021 – FPX Nickel Corp. (FPX-TSX.V) (“FPX” or the “Company”) is pleased to announce the completion of drilling programs at the Decar Nickel District in Central British Columbia. The previously announced programs (see FPX’s June 29, 2021 news release) mark the most active campaign at Decar since 2012, with a focus on resource conversion of the Baptiste Deposit (“Baptiste”) plus a maiden drill campaign at the Van Target, located 6 kilometres north of Baptiste.
At the Van Target, a total of 2,689 metres of drilling in nine widely-spaced diamond drill holes has been completed. Maiden drilling at Van was designed to test the sub-surface potential for mineralization in areas below and adjacent to prospective samples of outcropping bedrock, which had defined a target area of approximately 2.9 square kilometres. The size of the Van Target defined by outcrop sampling is comparable to the Baptiste deposit, which measures 3.2 kilometres along strike with widths of up to 1,080 metres.
At Baptiste, a 10-ten hole, 2,710-mere infill diamond drilling program has been completed. Drilling at Baptiste was designed to convert the deposit’s near-surface inferred resources to the indicated classification to support an eventual Baptiste preliminary feasibility study. The mine plan in the Baptiste preliminary economic assessment envisaged the mining of a total of approximately 1.5 billion tonnes of material for processing over the Project’s 35-year mine life, with approximately 89% of this mineralization classified in the indicated category and 11% in the inferred category.
Assays from the Van and Baptiste programs are pending, and first results are expected to be reported by the Company in October.
Dr. Peter Bradshaw, P. Eng., FPX’s Qualified Person under NI 43-101, has reviewed and approved the technical content of this news release.
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
