The Zeb Nickel project is located in the world-famous Platinum Group Element (PGE) and nickel-producing region of South Africa known as the Bushveld complex. Bushveld complex is the largest layered igneous intrusion that has been discovered yet. This site was discovered around 1897 by Gustaaf Molengraaf and later identified as one of the richest ore deposits on earth.
The complex contains the world’s largest reserves of platinum group metals (PGMs) or Platinum group elements (PGEs) namely, Platinum, Palladium, Osmium, Iridium, Rhodium, and Ruthenium. In addition, this deposit contains vast quantities of iron, tin, chromium, titanium, and vanadium also. This Bushveld complex account for more than 75% of the world’s platinum reserves and they exist mainly associated with the magmatic nickel deposit. Zeb Nickel project is located in the northern Limb area of the Bushveld complex which is a world-renowned region for producing Ni-Cu-PGE. Anglo platinum’s Mogalakwena mine, the largest open cast platinum mine is located, less than 15km north of the Zeb Nickel project. Another world-renowned project, Ivanhoe’s platreef project is positioned 5km northwest of the Zeb Nickel project. This area is well developed with infrastructure like road, rail, power, and water which are essential to establish a mining project.
Blue Rhino Capital finished its qualifying transaction involving the acquisition of the Zebediela Nickel company (Pvt) Ltd which was a privately owned company, on July 30, 2021. Blue Rhino acquired all the shares issued by the company as the sole shareholder of the company and rebranded it as “ZEB Nickel Corp”. Zeb Nickel project can be considered as an attractive source for environmentally friendly, cost-efficient sustainable nickel sulfide deposit in terms of its location, Geometry and size of the ore body.
This project is classified as a developing class 1 nickel sulfide project which contains historical N143-101 resources of over 3.9 million tons of nickel sulfides. This deposit is ranked as the 8th best deposit among the global top 10 nickel sulfide deposits. (Mudd, G. M., & Jowitt, S. M. (2014)
Three distinct regions were identified over a strike length of over 5 km on the project, targeting near-surface Ni sulfides and high-grade mineralization at a depth.
a) Target 1 – Disseminated Nickel sulfide resources.
This is a historically indicated deposit contain 485.4 Mt @ 0.25% Ni and Inferred resource of 1.115 Mt @ 0.25% Ni.
b) Target 2 – Platreef/ Critical Zone Mineralization.
This zone extends for along the strike length for over a distance of 6500m and with a width 5 to 100m. As found through the drilling programs, this mineralization extends up o a depth of 400m. Sot the next phase of the drilling program will mainly focus on the testing continuity of mineralization.
c) Target 3 – Footwall mineralization
This target is conceptual and none of the studies has been carried out targeting the dimensions of this mineralization.
The historical mineral resource estimation on nickel mineralization has been done to the samples from target 1., located in the Uitllop II body at the Zeb Project. According to the studies carried out by the Zeb Nickel project, it has been found that Indicated Resource of 485.4 million tonnes averaging 0.245% Ni, with an additional Inferred Resource of 1,115.1 million tonnes at 0.248% Ni, using a cut-off grade of 0.1% TNi (Total Nickel). TNi are the samples that are restricted only to mineralization in the “Sulphide Zone”.
Phase 2 drilling program was carried out to determine the current estimates of mineral resources on the Zeb project and to confirm the validity of historical estimates. Investors of the Zeb project are cautioned about depending entirely on historical estimates may lead to the miss interpretation of the deposit as an economic deposit.
On March 15, 2022, Zeb Nickel announced that it has completed phase 2 of the drilling program which successfully intersected Critical Zone lithologies in all drill holes, located under the historically examined 43-101-compliant which contains 1.5 billion-ton sulfide nickel resource and approximately 3,955 kt of nickel. The cut off grade of 31% of Ni from this phase of drilling has resulted in an increased grade of 76% higher than that declared in the historical resource and this is a good sign of being that a more economically valuable deposit
Highlights of results of phase 2 drlling:
- 0.71 g/t 3PGE+Au (58% palladium content) and 1.7 % nickel at a depth of 260 m below surface;
- 6.4 g/t 3PGE+Au (89% platinum content) and 0.39% nickel at a depth of 72 m below surface;
- 2.13 g/t 3PGE+Au (61% palladium content) and 0.47% nickel at a depth of 214 m below surface;
- 1.27 g/t 3PGE+Au (45% palladium content) and 0.69% nickel at a depth of 320 m below surface;
For more information on Zeb Nickel please visit their website at www.zebnickel.com
