The completion of an initial resource estimate for Sirius Resources' second major nickel deposit near Norseman has failed to replicate the market excitement when the ore body was initially discovered.
The company has estimated the Bollinger deposit contains 81,000 tonnes of nickel, 33,000 tonnes of copper, and 3,300 tonnes of cobalt.
That compares to the nearby Nova resource, which is thought to contain 242,000 tonnes of nickel, 100,000 tonnes of copper and 7,700 tonnes of cobalt.
The market leapt into a frenzy when Sirius first announced it had hit significant nickel deposits at Nova in July last year.
In the year since the company’s shares continued to rise on the back of continuing promising results to hit a high of $4.74 in March this year - 8215 per cent higher than what its shares were worth before Nova was discovered.
The value of Sirius shares are now less than half that - trading at around $2 with no gains made following today’s news.
The fall reflects a drop in the nickel price since the start of 2013 from just below $US8.50 a pound to around $6.20 a pound.
Sirius is continuing with a scoping study of the combined Nova-Bollinger resource, including underground mine design, environmental surveys and infrastructure considerations for mining and export.