Western Mines Group says its diamond drill program at its nickel-copper-platinum group elements project in Western Australia’s Goldfields region is reinforcing the company’s faith in its Mulga Tank complex.
Management now believes its latest drilling has uncovered “clear evidence” of an extensive magmatic nickel sulphide mineral system and big volumes of mineralised ultramafic magma. It says that has positive implications for the prospectivity of its flagship project and its ongoing exploration targeting.
Western Mines also believes an update on the drilling of hole MTD026, which has reached 1353m deep and is still ongoing, points to similar geology – but even richer visible sulphides mineralisation – to hole MTD023, about 1km to the north-east.
MTD023’s significant mineralised intersections totalled 693.5m at 0.28 per cent nickel, 128 parts per million cobalt, 61ppm copper and 27 parts per billion platinum and palladium.
MTD026 is the fifth of what was originally designed to be a six-hole, 4000m to 5000m program and is about half-way between MTD023 and MTD020 – both of which demonstrated extensive intersections of disseminated sulphide mineralisation. A capital raise, in addition to encouraging exploration results, has allowed the company to add another eight holes to an expanded program and more are expected to be added.
MTD026 aims to test the centre of the Mulga Tank ultramafic complex.
The hole further validates our geological model of the complex and really demonstrates a significant working nickel sulphide mineral system with huge volumes of mineralised ultramafic magma and a large footprint over some 3.2km.
Mulga Tank sits 190km east of Kalgoorlie and comprises about 400 square kilometres of hitherto largely unexplored terrain, with no hole deeper than about 200m.
But the company’s drilling program, aided by $220,000 worth of funding from the State Government’s Exploration Incentive Scheme (EIS), is helping to change that situation. Phase two of Western Mines’ program comprises six diamond drill holes going up to 5000m to test several targets based on both the first phase of the campaign and ongoing exploration and targeting work.
Management reports that three holes have been completed, including MTD023, which was the first hole co-funded through the EIS.
Western Mines has its eyes set on Mulga Tank replicating komatiite nickel sulphide discoveries at the nearby Mt Keith and Perseverance mines. It believes the complex has a lopolith or “lenticular bowl” shaped geological model.
The company says MTD026 has so far intersected about 1300m in cumulative thickness of high magnesium oxide adcumulate dunite ultramafic, containing near-continuous disseminated magmatic sulphides that in a number of places coalesced into interstitial blebs of 3 to 5 per cent sulphide and even approached a net-textured 5 to 10 per cent sulphide.
Multiple intersections of high-tenor remobilised massive nickel sulphide blebs and veining were also seen frequently down the length of MTD026. That was confirmed by spot portable X-ray fluorescence (pXRF) readings.
The company says the mean average nickel value across 2512 readings is 0.31 per cent nickel, with individual spot values of up to 65.6 per cent nickel where sulphide mineralisation was observed.
However, Western Mines cautions that while previous mineralogical work on a limited number of samples from holes MTD020 and MTD022 has confirmed disseminated pentlandite mineralisation, similar mineralogical investigation is yet to be performed on hole MTD026.
Western Mines’ stock has risen rapidly in recent weeks on the back of its Mulga Tank drilling program, up steeply from its year-low of 11.5 cents in early April. Today, the share price popped almost 16 per cent to an intraday high of 84.5 cents.
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