The company, previously Auroch Minerals, has owned Saints for the past few years, and is keen to capitalise on rising demand for nickel sulphides, with the company ploughing into a prefeasibility study.

 

The development would require declines centred on the St Patricks and St Andrews deposits, and FBM would need less than $9 million in pre-production spending, with a 12-month development period and short five-year mine life based on current resources of 20,995 tonnes contained nickel, 1570t copper and 631t cobalt.

 

FBM chair Mike Edwards described Saints as a simple, low-risk, low-capex development exploiting known high-grade resources to generate a pre-tax net present value of $56 million, with an internal rate of return of 362%.

 

Payback is about 12 months, assuming a $8.30 per pound nickel equivalent

 

Saints would have "substantial upside if current nickel prices persist or if exploration successfully discovers further resources at depth", Edwards said.

 

The Kambalda-style channels remain open down-plunge.

 

Saints is close to multiple third-party concentrators, so there would be little need for expensive infrastructure, and its proximity to mining hubs at Leinster, Kalgoorlie and Kambalda would lend the project to avoiding a "cost prohibitive" site camp and during a drive-in, drive-out workforce.

 

While FBM needs an offtake agreement, it has reported that material at Saints delivered "excellent recoveries" of 80-87% for nickel, 95% for copper and 84-92% for cobalt.

 

FBM is continuing with permitting, PFS work and ore sorting trials.

 

The company started the year with $4 million cash. 

 

Shares in the company have traded at 4.6-15c over the past year, and were last priced at 7.5c, valuing it at $32 million.