On July 26 last year, Sirius announced the discovery hit of 4m at 3.8% nickel and 1.4% copper from a drilling program targeting an electromagnetic anomaly at its 70%-owned Fraser Range project in Western Australia.
 
Bennett recalls sitting onsite at what is now called Nova on Saturday, July 21 with the discovery hole completed to 180m.
 
The 4m discovery mineralisation was intersected from 191m the next day.
 
It felt like a lifetime ago for Bennett.
 
“I was actually just going through some of my filing on my computer and I came across a couple of things I’d written – one was the original note I’d written to the board from the drill site when we first drilled the hole, saying ‘oh, I think this might be interesting’,” Bennett told MiningNewsPremium.
 
“Quite funny to look back on in hindsight.
 
“And then another note I wrote for the guys here saying if you haven’t lived through this sort of event before, hold on and park the rest of your lives for six months!
 
“So it’s been all-consuming really, in a good way.”
 
On that first day, news of the discovery sent Sirius shares flying, with the stock jumping a staggering 690% to A45c on July 26 – from its previous price of 5.7c.
 
Shares gained a further 40% the following day and another 92% the next week, after which the company raised a quick $7.6 million at 76c per share – which was essential given the company was getting low on cash prior to the discovery.
 
The comparisons to Voiseys Bay started to emerge not long after the discovery, which continued to ignite the company’s shares.
 
Sirius kept the results from Nova coming and by the end of August 2012, Sirius shares were at $1.41, a rise of almost 2400% in a little over a month.
 
By the end of September, shares were up more than 3600% since July 25.
 
The company’s shares hit an all-time high of $4.99 in March, pushing its market capitalisation over the $1 billion mark.
 
Sirius was subsequently added to the S&P/ASX 200 index.
 
The July edition of the Gresham Group 150 named Sirius as the top performer of the 2013 financial year with its shares up more than 3500% and its market cap up over 5300%.
 
Sirius raised $44 million in December to fast-track Nova and still had $41 million at the end of last month.
 
The much-anticipated Nova maiden resource of 10.2 million tonnes at 2.4% nickel, 1% copper and 0.08% cobalt for 242,000 tonnes of nickel, 100,000t copper and 7700t cobalt was announced during Mines and Money Hong Kong, a short time before Bennett’s presentation.
 
He announced a scoping study would begin immediately.
 
At that stage, the company had only just discovered the Bollinger deposit but last week unveiled a maiden resource for the deposit, taking the combined Nova-Bollinger inventory to 14.6Mt at 2.2% nickel, 0.9% copper and 0.08% cobalt for a contained 325,000t nickel, 134,000t copper and 11,000t cobalt.
 
The combined Nova-Bollinger scoping study is due for completion by the end of next month, with Bennett saying Sirius will be moving to a larger office as feasibility studies take off.
 
Bennett previously described Sirius as “three guys in a shed in Balcatta” prior to the discovery but the company has since grown to 25 office staff with more in the field.
 
Sirius held a party for its staff last week to commemorate the anniversary of the discovery, which is just the beginning for the company.
 
“It’s turned out really well,” Bennett said.
 
“We sort of identified the most important and urgent things to do first and got those done and then they took care of themselves and we just keep adding things to it.
 
“It’s been pretty good like that. Having a good set of people I could pull in was really helpful because those guys just set to it and did it.”
 
Unsurprisingly, Bennett said it had been the busiest year of his career.
 
“When we discovered Thunderbox that was pretty busy but that was part of a bigger company with more people around so this was sort of starting from scratch with virtually no one,” he said.
 
“So it was finding the people, doing the marketing, raising the money, writing the ASX announcements – which were every other day – all of that sort of stuff and the logistics and so on.”
 
And the discovery has meant a lot to companies other than Sirius.
 
It’s boosted confidence in the exploration sector, as well as potentially opening up a new Australian minerals province.
 
Since the news broke, companies have flocked to the Fraser Range region.
 
This week alone, companies like Windward Resources – also backed by Sirius’ major shareholder Mark Creasy, Terrain Minerals and Enterprise Metals have enjoyed huge share price rises thanks to activity in the region.
 
And last week, shares in Orion Gold gained as much as 145% after it identified targets close to Nova.
 
Windward, as well as Boadicea Resources and Classic Minerals, have been among the few initial public offerings to get up over the past year, thanks to their landholdings in the Fraser Range region.
 
Matsa Resources, Buxton Resources, Sheffield Resources, Forge Resources, RAM Resources, Oroya Resources, Pioneer Resources and AXG are other companies to benefit from nearology.
 
Most have enjoyed price rises without even having to drill a single hole.
 
Meanwhile, after hitting a 2013 low of $1.79 on June 25, Sirius shares have had a good month so far in July.
 
Shares jumped nearly 41% between June 28 and July 24 to $2.64 and were trading at $2.55 this morning.