Mining’s old guard needs strong medicine
A new report details subpar investor returns in the mining industry over the last decade, particularly big cap diversified companies which have not adapted to new realities.
Ulaanbaatar-based Asian Battery Minerals, which was a participant in the 2023 BHP Xplor accelerator program and is targeting potential nickel deposits in Mongolia, joined forces with Getech, a locator of subsurface resources, and just completed an initial round of exploration work.
Getech employed methodologies such as terrain and structural analysis, and gravity and magnetics data analysis to provide an extensive report assessing the structural and paleotectonic elements in the exploration area of interest.
The miner’s Oval Ni-Cu-PGE project is a magmatic mafic sulphide deposit where ABM believes there’s great economic potential, due to its vicinity to several large metal deposits in China.
The results from the collaboration with Getech are expected to allow ABM to enhance its exploration strategy as Getech’s data encompasses 400 million years of earth’s evolution, coupled with geoscience expertise, AI-driven analytics and extensive GIS capabilities.
“While we are known to have extensive experience in mineral exploration for sedimentary basin ores, this project focused on ‘hard rock’ exploration. This challenge proved that our mineral systems analysis capabilities and data extend into deeper and older deposits such as magmatic nickel,” Richard Bennett, Getech’s executive chairman, said in a media statement. “Leveraging our proprietary data amassed over 30 years and our geological exploration expertise, complemented by AI-driven analytics, we can successfully locate potential new search spaces for a wide range of minerals.”
Bennett noted that nickel, with its unique properties, is the keystone for a wide array of clean energy technologies and plays a pivotal role not only in geothermal technologies, batteries for electric vehicles and energy storage systems but also in hydrogen, hydro, wind and concentrating solar power technologies.
According to a report by McKinsey, the world could be facing a nickel shortage of 10-20% by the end of this decade, thus, exploration for nickel has become an imperative part of the energy transition.
