The South Voisey's Bay (SVB) Property is located 260 kilometres north-northwest of Goose Bay and 80 kilometres south of the Voisey's Bay nickel, copper, and cobalt mine which accounted for more than 28 per cent of nickel, 18 per cent of Cobalt and 6 per cent of Copper production in Canada by 2013 (Source: US Geological Survey, 2014; Vale S.A., 2014 ).
Access is via helicopter or float plane. The SVB Property is 29,400 Hectares (29.4 Sq.Km) in size.
The Property encompasses gabbros of the Pants Lake mafic intrusive complex (PLI) situated at the tectonic boundary between the Nain and Churchill provinces dominated by basement gneisses. The PLI, consisting of the South, North, Worm, and Mineral Hill intrusions, has been the main focus of all mineral exploration on the Property to date.
The PLI is the only significant analogue to the Voisey's Bay Mine in Labrador. There are clear similarities between the geological settings, age, petrology, and geochemistry of the Pants Lake Intrusion underlying the South Voisey's Bay Property and that of the analogous mafic rocks in the Voisey's Bay area.
Voisey's Bay Mine - Reserves 2016
Classification |
Reserves (Mt) |
Ni(%) |
Cu(%) |
Co(%) |
Proven |
18.4 |
2.35 |
1.12 |
0.13 |
Probable |
15.4 |
2.02 |
0.89 |
0.13 |
Total |
33.8 |
2.20 |
1.02 |
0.13 |
The Voisey's Bay Mines transition from open pit ore from the Ovoid deposit to underground ore was approved for execution in 2016. The first underground ore is expected to be delivered from the Reid Brook deposit in 2021. When complete the underground mine will produce an average of 46,000 tons of contained nickel per year and extend the operational life until 2032.
Fjordland kindly acknowledges the financial support offered by the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador's Junior Exploration Assistance Program (JEA). The JEA aims to grow the mineral inventory of the Province through the discovery of new mineral districts, occurrences, prospects, and deposits. The Program also aims to advance mineral discoveries through the stage of defining NI 43-101 compliant mineral resources and to enhance Newfoundland and Labrador’s competitiveness as a world class mineral exploration destination.
Source: Vale S.A. - Form 20-F for the year ended December 31, 2016 as filed with the SEC April 10, 2017.
In September 2014 (amended November 2014), whereby Fjordland was granted an option to earn a 75% undivided interest in the South Voisey’s Bay property.Fjordland entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (“MOU”) with Commander Resources Ltd (“Commander”)
Fjordland had earned a 15% interest in the property by having expended $350,000 in exploration costs prior to the expiration of the option agreement on August 15, 2015.
Fjordland, in June 2017, entered into a new option agreement with Commander Resources Ltd (“Commander”) whereby the Company was granted a series of options to earn an additional 85% undivided interest in the South Voisey’s Bay property.
Under the terms of the agreement, Fjordland can earn additional interest by incurring the following cash, exploration expenditures and share issuance:
(i)20% interest - 200,000 common shares and $600,000 in exploration expenditures on or before October 31, 2017
ii)40% interest - $10,000 and 250,000 common shares on or before July 26, 2018
$15,000 and 300,000 common shares on or before July 26, 2019
$25,000 and 350,000 common shares on or before July 26, 2020
$40,000, 400,000 common shares and $2,400,000 in exploration expenditures on or before October 31, 2021
iii)25% interest $200,000 and 3,000,000 common shares and $5,000,000 in exploration expenditures on or before October 31, 2024.
As at October 31, 2017, Fjordland has earned an additional 20% interest in the property having issued 200,000 common shares and expended $600,000 in exploration cost, and has a total interest earned of 35%.
On September 5, 2017 Fjordland executed an agreement with HPX BC Holdings Inc. (“HPX”), an affiliate of Ivanhoe Industries. HPX subscribed for $1,400,000 of a private placement which funds were utilized to meet Fjordland's obligations under the option agreement with Commander. HPX is a privately held metals focused exploration company with a highly experienced board bed by Chair and Chief Executive Officer Robert Friedland. For further information please visit:www.hpxploration.com.
In addition, HPX has the opportunity to incur, on behalf of Fjordland, $7,400,000 in exploration expenditures and to make $290,000 of property payments.If this funding is completed in its entirety and Fjordland acquires a 100% interest in the South Voisey’s Bay project, Fjordland has agreed to assign a 65% project interest to HPX.
Magmatic sulphide mineralization associated with gabbroic rocks in the Pants Lake area was initially recognized in 1991, but received no exploration attention until 1995. From 1995 to 2008 extensive exploration was completed on the Property by a number of operators including Donner Minerals, Commander Resources, Teck Exploration, and Falconbridge Limited. Exploration included stream sediment geochemistry, prospecting and geological mapping of the PLI, geophysical surveys including airborne and ground magnetics, airborne EM and MegaTEM, gravity, HLEM, IP, TDEM, AMT, and UTEM, and diamond drilling totalling 144 holes (35,102 metres).
Fjordland considers the South Voisey's Bay project to be a top tier Ni-Cu-Co opportunity for the following reasons:
(i) Large 294 km2 (29,400 ha) land positioned over the Pants Lake Gabbro Complex, 85 km south of the Voisey’s Bay mine operated by Vale
ii)There are striking similarities in the ages, geological setting, petrology, geochemistry and sulphide mineralization of the mafic intrusions at Pants Lake and Voisey’s Bay
iii)Recent research relating to the mode of ore deposition combined with over $20 million in proprietary historic exploration data creates opportunity for data-mining
iv)Known Ni, Cu, Co occurrences - pipeline of targets including drill ready conductors
v)Building a premier exploration team headed up by Dawn Evans-Lamswood, member of original discovery team at Voisey’s Bay and recent Exploration Manager of Brown Field Exploration for Inco-Vale focusing on expansion of the Voisey’s Bay mine site resource.
In November 2014 Fjordland commissioned
ground geophysical surveys including magnetics (42 line-km)
and a UTEM 3 (22.6 line-km) survey.
The survey delineated an extremely strong, sub-horizontal conductive body approximately 350 metres by 400 metres in size, elongated north-northwest (Sandy target). A group of four sub-parallel steeply dipping conductors were also delineated (Sandy North target). These conductors, located 1 kilometre to the north of the Sandy target, are closely associated with the basal portion of the Worm gabbro body.
In November 2017, Fjordland completed a drill program of 1,469 metres in holes which tested six shallow UTEM geophysical targets. Best results were from holes 17-2 which returned 0.8 metres grading 0.63% nickel, 0.30% copper and 0.1% cobalt and hole 17-6 which returned 3.9 metres grading 0.37% nickel, 0.27% copper and 0.1 % cobalt. The intersections are semi-massive to massive sulphide comprised of pyrrhotite, pentlandite and chalcopyrite. Both intersections occur within or at the base of the Worm Gabbro within a sequence of troctolite. They are overlain by several metres of blebby and net textured sulphides. Holes 17-3, 5 and 7 returned low nickel values. Three holes, 17-1, 17-4 and 17-8, located 1.8 km south of hole 17-6 tested a prominent low angle conductor within paragneiss adjacent to an arm of the Worm Gabbro and all three holes encountered zones of high sulphide with low nickel values hosted by structures and sometimes accompanied by mixed gabbro breccia. Borehole Electro-Magnetic (BHEM) data, collected by Crone Geophysics in November, defined several extremely high conductivity targets between holes 17-1, 17-4, and 17-8. In addition, BHEM data from holes 17-6 and 17-7 delineate a strong conductor associated with the intersected sulphides, and an even stronger off-hole conductor.
Subsequent to the 2017 drill program exploration activities included property wide re-processing of additional historical EM data including UTEM-3 surveys and Crone pulse EM surveys.Initial focus is on the large South Gabbro body where limited historical drilling has retuned elevated nickel within basal olivine gabbro units and in wall rock veins.
On March 4, 2018, Fjordland announced that HPX has advised that they will fund $1,200,000 on a proposed 2018 summer drill program.This funding is considered the initial pre-paid consideration against the opportunity to sole fund exploration and option payments allowing Fjordland to earn a 100% interest in the SVB Project. In the event that this were to occur Fjordland will assign a 65% in the mineral tenure to HPX.
Please click here or on the thumbnail to your right for a comprehensive overview of the PLI authored by A. Kerr of the Newfoundland Department of National Resources entitled " The Pants Lake Intrusion, Central Labrador: Geology, Geochemical and Magmatic Ni-Cu-Co Sulphide Mineralization. To review Summaries and Conclusion please refer to pages 109 - 124 of this document.
Note: John Peters, PGeo is the QP who has reviewed the data presented.
Last update on April 13, 2018