While early days, Stavely Minerals Ltd has bravely suggested the mineralisation of its Hawkestone base metals project in Western Australia’s West Kimberley may be similar to that of some of the world’s largest nickel mines.

They include Nornickel’s truly polymetallic Norilsk in Russia’s northern Siberia (the sector’s largest producer of nickel concentrate), Vale SA’s Voisey’s Bay in the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Jinchuan Group Co Ltd’s namesake operation in China’s Gansu region, which enjoys the reputation of being the third biggest nickel-copper sulphide deposit.

In addition, the ASX-listed junior believes the geological tenor of Hawkstone’s magmatic style of nickel sulphides could be similar to that of IGO Ltd’s underground Nova Bollinger base metals mine, located 220 kilometres south west of Kalgoorlie-Boulder in WA’s Fraser Range.

The claim was made by Stavely’s executive chair and managing director Chris Cairns at the end of April, when the company announced it had received two exploration incentive scheme (EIS) grants worth $430,000 from the WA government to drill 10 RC holes (around 200 metres) and conduct a moving loop electromagnetic survey at the company’s nickel-copper-cobalt project.

Hawkstone comprises around 1166 square kilometres of tenure, held both 100 per cent by the junior, with earn-in and/or exploration rights in 16 separate tenements through Stavely’s wholly-owned subsidiaries North West Nickel Pty Ltd and Strategic Metals Pty Ltd.

In its announcement to the market, the explorer not only made some possible brave geological comparisons with the above-mentioned global operations, but it also pointed out that its project was in the right location when it came to making significant discoveries, with some of its neighbours including IGO/Buxton Resources Ltd’s nickel-copper-cobalt joint ventures – Merlin (found in 2015) and Dogleg (discovered in 2023).

Both of these projects are located directly along strike from Hawkstone, which is also a nickel-copper-cobalt project.

In November 2023, IGO and Buxton announced high grade and high tenor assays from Dogleg hosted in the Ruins Dolerite that sits 13km north west of Merlin.

Later, in February 2024, the JV partners said they had returned further robust assay results from the second diamond drill hole.

This, Stavely maintains, demonstrates that the geological processes required to form a magmatic nickel sulphide deposit have occurred within the Ruins Dolerite, and Hawkstone contains about 30km of strike continuation of this highly prospective, yet under-explored, unit.

The company’s recently-completed Falcon gravity gradiometer survey over the project area has identified an approximate 20km long gravity high ridge interpreted to represent a previously unknown mafic/ultramafic magma chamber at depth.

Interestingly, both Merlin and Dogleg are located on the southern margin of a gravity high, which is interpreted to reflect mafic/ultramafic magma chambers at depth.

“Nickel sulphide deposits are highly conductive and are good targets for detection using EM surveying,” Stavely noted in its March quarterly.

“Moving loop EM (MLEM) surveys have been responsible for the Spotted Quoll nickel discovery in 2007 (located in WA’s Forrestania district and now owned by IGO) and Nova in 2012, and the more recent Dogleg nickel discovery, to name but a few.”

In October 2023, IGO drill tested a 15,000 Siemens MLEM conductor at Dogleg and intersected 13.85m at 4.35 per cent nickel, 0.34 per cent copper and 0.15 per cent cobalt from 177.34 metres, including an intercept of 5.86m at 7.47 per cent nickel, 0.31 per cent copper and 0.25 per cent cobalt via diamond drilling. Dogleg was not identified in an earlier airborne EM survey.

Then, in 2024, Stavely started a detailed MLEM survey on an exploration licence, focusing predominantly on the southern margin of the large gravity high as identified by the Falcon survey. It was interpreted to represent a mafic/ultramafic magma chamber at depth.

The junior now intends to continue with the MLEM survey along the southern margin of the postulated magma chamber in the eastern portion of the project area, as well as follow-up an emerging anomaly identified on the EL.

As it stands, shallower conductors (under 200m depth) already identified by the MLEM work will be targeted by RC drill testing for nickel-copper sulphides.

Cairns said the company believed receiving the EIS monies represented a strong endorsement of Hawkestone’s technical merits.

“The magmatic nickel style of deposits are amongst the largest and highest-grade nickel deposits globally and, uniquely, typically have associated copper sulphides in economic abundance,” he noted.

“This adds to their very strong deposit economics and positions them as some of the lowest cost producers of nickel globally.”