Medium-sized West Australian miner Jubilee Mines NL, is maintaining the good news factor that has made it one of the world’s most profitable, if not the most profitable, nickel producer.
The company today detailed new drilling results that are likely to be a key to add to the company’s resource inventory through the just-entered AM2 zone development, which is linked to the Alex Mairs Complex south of Jubilee’s Cosmos Deeps Mine. The latest drill hits were a mix of wide intersections of medium grade, with some of those high grade hits that has made the company an Australian sharemarket darling since early this decade.
Analysts believe Jubilee will be able to add to the inventory on AM2, which has a current resource of 60,779 tonnes grading 12.91% nickel for a contained 7,844t of nickel metal.
The latest hits on AM2 included hole BJD271 that hit 34.5 metres grading 1.71% Ni, including 9.2m @ 4.1% and 0.7m @ 8.74% Ni, and AMD240 with 77.7m @ 0.82% Ni, including 18.7m @ 1.85% and 1m @ 8.92%. AM2 is 500m south along strike of the Cosmos Deeps, about 650m below surface.
“The intersection in BJD271 includes both narrow high grade massive and broad disseminated mineralisation within a substantially thicker ultramafic host rock that has been previously encountered,” the company said.
“This association is indicative of a strengthening style of deposit, and these results continue to confirm the company’s view that the Alex Mairs Complex (within which AM2 is linked) is part of an emerging, much broader mineralised system in the area, located adjacent to the Cosmos Deeps mine infrastructure.
“The AM2 deposit and its associated additional mineralised surfaces, remains open and drilling is continuing.”
The results come days after Jubilee made one of the most impressive presentations at the big RIU Explorers Conference in the Perth seaside city of Fremantle, that showed the company now has a market capitalisation of $A2.1 billion ($US1.65B), cash and receivables of $A296.8M ($US233.44M), net profit in 2006 of $A369M ($US290.8M) and discovery costs of $A0.15/lb nickel ($US0.117/lb).
Earnings per share were $A2.95 ($US2.32) for the 129.7 M fully paid shares, dividends paid or declared were $A1.73/share ($US1.36), and the annual payout ration (annualised) was 59%.
The company began operation initially on the Cosmos open cut in Western Australia’s north eastern goldfields, but found more at depth and along strike, and from April 2000 has milled 1.079 Mt grading 7.2% Ni for 77,759t of contained nickel.
The company is driven by lawyer turned mining entrepreneur Kerry Harmanis who has proven to be one of the most entertaining presenters on the Australian mining conference circuit. He has regularly said he is a strong believer in paying dividends because he is the company’s major shareholder. While he sold some shares recently, Harmanis’ family still has at least a 15% stake. Also listed as a key shareholder with 4.9% is Inco Ltd (now controlled by Brazil’s CVRD), which has a concentrates offtake agreement with Jubilee.
Jubilee is one of the big spenders on exploration, not only within its mine confines but elsewhere along a prospective belt north of Leonora towards Agnew and Wiluna. The company has also made strategic corporate investments, and holds 16.2% of Falcon Minerals which is a partner exploring the Collurabbie belt north of Cosmos, a 17.4% stake in Pioneer Nickel and 25.6% of North Star Resources Ltd, whose hunting ground is the remote East Kimberleys of northern Western Australia for both base metals and uranium.
source news : miniweb.net
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