Dear VMS Ventures and North American Nickel followers,
First, Happy New Year to you all. The calendar has turned yet again and �hope springs eternal �, as someone famously said. We have much to look forward to in 2014.
In VMS, we expect full production at our high grade Reed Copper Mine near Snow Lake, Manitoba in Q2. In North American Nickel, we are all very excited about the prospects for our large 100% owned high grade nickel sulphide project near Maniitsoq, Greenland. It is an important year for both companies.
Below, I have included a brief note on Base Metals from RBC Capital Markets published last week. Higher commodity prices would certainly make 2014 brighter for both VMS and NAN.
The bigger piece in today�s blast is the video footage from our September, 2013 nickel sulphide lecture series held in Greenland and Denmark. The four segments contain about two hours of video footage and, no, we do not expect many of you to wade through it all, but I do think you might find it interesting to �meet� the speakers by dropping in for a few minutes on one, or all, of the guys.
Dr. Tony Naldrett is the �star of the show�. He is on our Advisory Board and is arguably the world�s leading authority on nickel sulphide deposits. He speaks on it in his two 35 minutes videos titled From the Mantle to the Bank: The life of a Nickel Sulfide Deposit. I will try to help you drop into the video segments with some comments below.
Rick Mills who wrote an Ahead of the Herd article about the lecture series ( HERE ), introduced it with:
"North American Nickel (NAN), a resource exploration and development company, recently initiated a three-day lecture series in Greenland and Denmark. The obje ctive of the lectures was to educate the next generation of Greenlandic and Danish students to the mining industry by raising their awareness of professional opportunities in the technical, administrative and financial sectors, and to provide a description of the geological setting and exploration approaches to nickel sulphide mineralization.
The featured speaker was Dr. Tony Naldrett, the world�s foremost authority on nickel-copper-platinum group metal sulphide deposits . Prior to coming to Canada, Tony obtained his degree in geology from the University of Cambridge in 1957."
You can put a face to the name of the President of NAN. Mark sets up the other video pieces; he does a full description of Tony�s bio about the 5 minute mark
- Dr. Tony Naldrett � From the Mantle to the Bank: The life of a Nickel Sulfide Deposit � Part 1 - https://vimeo.com/81056225 (~35minutes)
In part one, Tony discusses Nickel markets and goes pretty technical as he describes deposits and tells a few interesting stories that I can describe as containing solid geological humor. He is a very engaging guy and is passionate about his life�s work�surf along and drop in to get a feel for Tony.
- Dr. Tony Naldrett � From the Mantle to the Bank: The life of a Nickel Sulfide Deposit � Part 2 - https://vimeo.com/81610459 (~35 minutes)
?In part two, there are a few interesting topics. At about 10 minutes he discusses the �R Factor� looking at nickel tenor, not grade�that may sound familiar to those following our Maniitsoq project. At 17 minutes, or so, he mentions that conduits are important. Nearer the end he tells the Voisey�s Bay discovery story and shows how their stock price rose (comparing it to concurrent nickel price) well past $100 in three, or so years. Finally, he summarizes the story of how the nickel gets from �the mantle to the bank�
?This is our own ex Falconbridge Chief Geologist. �JP�, as we know him, presenting the technical version of our corporate Power Point. It is from last September, so before our high grade results from the Imiak Hill Conduit Complex were announced. The slides are not reproduced as well as we would have liked, but you do get the chance to meet John as he digs into some of the more technical aspects of the Maniitsoq project. If you are really enjoying our �Master�s geology course for the day�, the full day of lectures from September 20th can be found on our website HERE. Please drop in and meet Tony, Mark and JP and get a better understanding of the science behind the challenges and complexities of Discovery. Best regards,
Rick Mark
CEO
North American Nick el and VMS Ventures
VMS owns ~23.9% of NAN
Q1/14 Global Mining Best Ideas
Portfolio Our Preference Remains Base Metal Equities
We remain cautiously optimistic on mining equities heading into Q1/14. We believe a rally in Base Metals commodities and mining shares should occur over the next three months, driven by improving economic leading indicators and favorable seasonal demand trends, which is also supported by current valuations 1. We believe current attractive valuations provide a buying opportunity for mining equities, with a focus on strong balance sheets, quality assets and free cash flow.
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