Western Areas Reports Further Exploration Upside for Cosmos

Western Areas Ltd. (ASX:WSA) announced that following a comprehensive review of data on the Cosmos Nickel Complex, it’s confirmed that there is “substantial additional exploration upside” beyond what the company expected when it acquired the property.
As quoted in the press release:

Western Areas has now re-opened the project site, commenced ground geophysics and an ongoing review of project data is in progress. Western Areas Managing Director, Mr Dan Lougher, said that the initial results have only reinforced the prospect for Cosmos to form WSA’s second mining operation alongside the premium Forrestania Nickel Operation.

Lougher commented:

Having gained access to Xstrata’s full drill hole database post completion of the transaction, our exploration team has conducted an extensive and thorough geological review. This has uncovered multiple significant high grade intersections at Cosmos that were not identified during the due diligence phase. The results of this review, combined with our modern geophysical tools, are providing a strong basis for our high priority target generation programme.
At the same time, a small in-house project team has been formed to update the mining development study on the Odysseus deposit at Cosmos. The aim is to bring the Odysseus study up to Western Areas standards using our low cost operating model and current market mining costs. We anticipate that the study could be converted to pre-feasibility status later this year, and we are already uncovering areas where significant optimisation of capital and operating costs can be delivered.

Click here to read the full Western Areas Ltd. (ASX:WSA) press release.