The company also announced an expansion of its summer-fall drilling programme to more than 11,000m. The programme had been designed to evaluate the nickel-copper-cobalt-platinum group elements potential of the Grasset Ultramafic Complex (GUC).

"Three years ago, we suspended expansion drilling on the Grasset deposit and exploration drilling within the broader GUC following the dramatic crash of the nickel price. Today with the strengthening of the nickel market and the outlook for increasing demand for nickel sulphide deposits to help meet the burgeoning electric vehicle battery market, we are excited to return to the evaluation of the Grasset deposit and nearby discoveries," said CEO Darin Wagner.

Balmoral had discovered the Grasset deposit and host complex in 2014, outlining the largest nickel sulphide deposit in the Abitibi region and one of the largest nickel sulphide deposits in North America not currently owned or controlled by a producing mining company or private equity interests.

The balance of the host GUC remained significantly underexplored, with very widely spaced drill testing in 2015 defining a series of additional nickel sulphide discoveries, and in several cases nearby gold discoveries, before drilling was suspended. Several of these discoveries were now slated for follow-up testing, and a series of exploration holes into new targets in the GUC were planned under the current programme.

Drilling was expected to continue into November.

"This new nickel sulphide belt is in its infancy from an exploration perspective and Balmoral controls it in its entirety," Wagner said.

Meanwhile, the company had now completed drilling on the Martiniere and Detour East properties.

Drilling near the LAM gold discovery at Martiniere had intersected gold mineralisation, including a high-grade intercept of 0.89 m grading 8.11 grams per tonne gold, and separate broader intercepts of 4.57m grading 0.51gpt and 12.15m grading 0.25gpt, in the first two holes of the programme.

Like in the Bug gold deposit, 4km to the south-east, gold mineralisation was found along a north-northwest trending felsic porphyry intrusion.

More results are pending.