Pulju Nickel-Copper Project

The Pulju Project represents a district-scale land package prospective for magmatic copper-nickel-PGMs over 170km² in Finland’s Central Lapland Greenstone Belt.

 

Nordic Resources’ tenements contain mafic-ultramafic lithologies analogous to Anglo American’s world-class Sakatti copper-nickel-PGE deposit, also located in Finnish Lapland, with both recent and historical drilling confirming the presence of widespread nickel sulphide mineralisation including a number of extremely high nickel tenor massive sulphide intersections, up to 9.6% Ni.¹ Surface exploration and drilling has also revealed widespread copper anomalism at Pulju, with Base-of-Till (“BOT”) assays up to 0.5% Cu and trench results up to 1.4% Cu.² To date, only a small fraction of the nickel occurrences (and none of the copper occurrences) have been followed up with drilling.

 

The focus of the historical work at Pulju has been focused on the small southern licence of Hotivaara. Outokumpu drilled a total of 51 holes at Nordic’s Hotinvaara exploration licence in the 1980s and 1990s targeting large-scale, shallow open pit deposits. This large, high-quality database only became available in 2021. Outokumpu (1980s) and Anglo American (2000s) completed a number of shallow, regional “scout” holes over the rest of the property, but it remains vastly underexplored. Outokumpu’s historical drilling was mostly shallow with no down-hole geophysics  – opening up a significant opportunity for discoveries.

Nordic completed its first drill program at Pulju in 2023, completing 28 holes for a total of 15,032m of diamond drilling. Combining this modern drilling with the historical database allowed Nordic to compile an updated in situ JORC (2012) Mineral Resource Estimate (MRE) for Hotinvaara of 418Mt at 0.21% Ni, 0.01% Co and 53ppm Cu for 862,800t of contained Ni, 40,000t of contained Co and 22,100t of contained Cu.³

Metallurgical testing conducted on the 2023 core provided excellent results, The results demonstrated that a clean 18% nickel concentrate with payable cobalt can be produced from the Hotinvaara mineralisation, with 62% recovery achieved in a first pass test program.⁴

Drilling and mineralisation studies from the core at Hotinvaara (and regionally at Pulju) indicates strong similarities between the geological environment at Pulju and Sakatti, with accumulations of disseminated nickel found near surface at both locations, with massive sulphide intersections encountered amongst the disseminated nickel. In addition, the high level of remobilisation found in the higher-grade zones at Hotinvaara, and in core from areas outside of Hotinvaara, suggests similarities to the Thompson nickel belt in Manitoba, Canada.

 

Nordic’s level of geological understanding at Pulju has increased dramatically as a result of its drilling, geophysical and litho-geochemical exploration work over the past four years. Together with recent analytical analysis from the regional surface exploration database, containing extensive and trenching assay results, the Company now has a strong portfolio of priority copper and nickel targets at Pulju (both magmatic and sediment hosted) ready to be progressed once funding is approved and licences are granted.

 

^[1] ASX release “Company Prospectus”, 30^th May 2022;

^[2] ASX release “Extensive Surface Exploration Results Reveal Geochemical Targets at Pulju”, 2^nd December 2024;

^[3] ASX release “Substantial Increase in Hotinvaara Resource Establishes Pulju as Globally Significant Nickel Sulphide District”, 11^th March 2024;

• Indicated Resource of 42Mt @ 0.22% Ni, 0.01% Co, 56ppm Cu;
• Inferred Resource of 376Mt @ 0.20% Ni, 0.01% Co, 52ppm Cu.

NNL confirms all material assumptions and technical parameters underpinning the Resource Estimate continue to apply and have not materially changed as per Listing Rule 5.23.2.

^[4] ASX release “Excellent Metallurgical Results at Hotinvaara Enhance Entire Pulju Project”, 23^rd October 2024.