Communicators

VANCOUVER, B.C. June 15, 2020 – Nicola Mining Inc. (the “Company”) is pleased to announce receipt of the final ALS Metallurgy[1] Laboratory Report (“Final Report”) for its upgrading and copper recovery test work that was initially conducted at Tomra Sorting’s Test Center in Hamburg, Germany and subsequently further tested at the ALS Metallurgy’s Laboratory (“ALS”) located in Kamloops BC. Results from the Final Report can also be seen in Section 13 of the Company’s recently released NI 43-101 Technical Report on the Preliminary Copper Resource for the Southern Dump and 3060 Portal Dumps (“NI 43-101 Report”), which was filed on June 1, 2020[2].

The NI 43-101 Report and the Final Report are complimentary as the first provides a preliminary resource for historic waste material located in the Southern Dump and adjacent to Portal 3060, while the latter focuses on the ability to upgrade material at the source and produce a concentrate from upgraded material. In addition, while neither attempted to provide a copper equivalent value (“CuEq”) based on magnetite contribution, the Final Report does highlight the need to evaluate its economic potential given the high percentage seen in both samples and produced concentrate.

The Tower Sample and Portal Sample results shown in Figures 2 and 3 of the Final Report, highlight average copper grades within the fines of 0.25% Cu and 0.22% Cu, respectively. Fines account for approximately 50% of the overall mass of the two test samples and contain higher grades than non-fine material in both samples. The preliminary copper resource, as reported in the June 2, 2020 news release is 0.13% Cu, also below the average grade of the fines. As described in Section 13 of the NI 43-101 Report, the Company plans to conduct further testing on the grades of the fines in the historic waste rock terraces, which account for approximately 50% of the tested material and graded 0.25% and additional lab testing to further increase recovery and grades.

The ALS Lab results confirm the ability to sort and separate mineralized material from non-mineralized waste with the TOMRA Tertiary XRT Sorter Conveyor (“XRT Sorter”). The results of the Final Report also highlight the potential to monetise copper contained within the 18,465 million tonne resource grading 0.13% Cu. Figure 1 highlights the XRT Sorter’s ability to upgrade from material sampled from the Southern Dump and Portal 3060.

Table 1:   Upgrade Percent and Recovery Results

In addition to testing two specific locations, the material samples were screened into the following size fractions: 1 to 2 inches, ½ to 1 inch, less than ½ inches. Any material greater than 2 inches was then coarse crushed and rescreened to a size under 2 inches in diameter. The 1 to 2 inch and ½ to 1 inch fractions were sent to Tomra, where they were tested using high and low selectivity settings for the x-ray transmission sensors. All sorted material was subsequently shipped to ALS for crushing and chemical analysis. Sorted material was separated by the two locations and classified into three sizes prior to analysis:

-          1 to 2 inches in diameter

-          ½ to 1 inch diameter

-          Less than ½ inch in diameter (“Fines”)  

The Final Report concludes that the XRT sorter was successful in rejecting material with average copper contents lower than 0.07%. Since the coarse fractions of the two bulk samples had different feed grades, rejecting material at this low average copper grade resulted in different copper and mass recoveries. These separations resulted in a copper grade upgrading factor of about 5 times on average for the coarse fractions of both samples.

Two flotation tests were conducted, the first as a kinetic rougher and the second as an open circuit cleaner test. A primary grind sizing of 132µm K80 was applied for both tests. In the cleaner test, which included regrinding and 3 stages of dilution cleaning, a final copper concentrate grading about 30 percent copper was produced that contained 73 percent of the feed copper.

Magnetic separation was evaluated on the flotation rougher tails stream. The combined results of a magnetic rougher test and a simple cleaner upgrading test indicated that a magnetite concentrate grading about 65 percent iron could be produced. This concentrate contained about 28 percent of the iron in the mill feed composite, along with about 3 percent of the feed mass. Further testing is recommended to confirm the potential to produce a higher-grade magnetite concentrate. It may be of value to produce a larger mass of concentrate for marketing purposes and confirm the levels of potential penalty elements in the concentrate.

Section 26 of the NI 43-101 Report recommends both trench sampling to better determine the grade and volume of fine material within the waste piles and to conduct additional Tomra sorting testing on resource material. Combined, the two tests will augment understanding of contained copper, as well as provide indications of potential economic value of the preliminary copper resource.

Qualified Person

Kevin Wells, P.Geo, a consulting geologist to the Company is the independent qualified person as defined by National Instrument 43-101 - Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects for the technical disclosure contained in this news release.

About Nicola Mining

Nicola Mining Inc. is a junior mining company listed on the TSX Venture Exchange and is in the process of recommencing mill feed processing operations at its 100% owned state-of-the-art mill and tailings facility, located near Merritt, British Columbia. It has already signed four mill profit share agreements with high grade gold producers. The fully permitted mill can process both gold and silver mill feed via gravity and floatation processes. The Company also owns 100% of Treasure Mountain, a high-grade silver property, and an active gravel pit that is located adjacent to its milling operations.

About New Craigmont

The New Craigmont Project (the “Property”) is a wholly owned copper property with an active mine permit (M-68), located within the world-class Highland Valley porphyry district. It benefits from excellent infrastructure. In November of 2015, Nicola became the first group in decades to consolidate ownership of the Property and has been actively conducting mineral exploration since.

“Peter Espig”              

Peter Espig

CEO & Director

For additional information contact: 

Peter Espig

Telephone: (778) 385-1213

Email: peter@nicolamining.com

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

[1] Metallurgy ALS is a global metallurgical testing and consulting services for mineral process flowsheet    development and optimization.  

[2] Effective Date:  May 21, 2020