Chalice Mining is heading for a major upgrade of its already world class Tier 1 Gonneville nickel, copper, PGE and cobalt find at Julimar, 70 kilometres northeast of Perth with a surprise statement to the ASX this week from the company revealing significant new assay results.
“Exceptional High-Grade Extensional Results at Julimar” the headline on the ASX release read – a week after the March quarterly report was released showing steady progress at the well-defined (and huge) Gonneville prospect, and early results from drilling and exploration results on other targets of interest along the 30-kilometre strike zone.
Given the results detailed in the release, it’s no wonder Chalice CEO, Alex Dorusch said in Monday’s statement
“The indications from our recent drilling are that Gonneville has the potential to be a very long life open-pit and underground mine, without taking into consideration anything we may find at our exciting targets along the Julimar Complex to the north.”
Chalice said in the release that wide-spaced step-out drilling is continuing at Gonneville, focused on expanding the high-grade, in-pit, indicated and inferred resource (which at the moment stands at 74 million tonnes at 1.8 grams to the tonne of 3E minerals – palladium, platinum and gold; 0.22% nickel, 0.21% Copper, 0.021% cobalt) into an underground category, as well as potentially increasing the size of the Resource pit shell.”
Chalice said a series of new high-grade (>0.6% NiEq) extensional drill results, up to around 260 metres beyond the limit of the current Gonneville Resource pit shell, will be included in the upcoming Resource update in June. That guarantees a big expansion in the measured and indicated resource at Gonneville beyond the current 330 million tonnes.
This week’s statement also revealed the company has two major reports in the offing – the updated resource estimate for Gonneville (330 million tonnes of PGE, nickel, copper, gold and cobalt) as well as a scoping study for the first stage of the Gonneville development later in the year.
The second resource estimate for Gonneville is slated to be released next month while the scoping survey results will be issued in the September quarter.
Chalice said exploration activities are continuing across much of the Julimar Complex, “with most activity currently focused on the Gonneville platinum group deposit at the southern end of the Complex.
“Initial early-stage exploration continues at the Hartog, Jansz and Torres targets to the north of Gonneville, however access for exploration remains restricted across large parts of the Complex (because of limited access to a national park at the moment. The company is negotiating new access agreements to allow for larger drills to be used).
“Five diamond rigs and one RC rig are currently continuing step-out, infill and metallurgical drilling at Gonneville. A combined total of 870 diamond and RC drill holes for ~220,000m and 643 AC drill holes have been completed at the Project to date.
“New assay results have been received for 78 RC/diamond holes at Gonneville which were not included in the maiden Resource published in November 2021 and four complete and two partial diamond holes at Hartog.
“Drilling has extended the high-grade (around 0.6% nickel equivalent or NiEq) sulphide zones beyond the Gonneville Resource pit shell. Importantly, sulphide mineralisation has now been extended up to 400 metres below the limit of the Gonneville Resource pit shell, which indicates the potential for material growth into a future underground resource category.
“Eight holes have been completed to date at lower priority targets (due to access constraints) within the ~6.5km x 2.0km Hartog area immediately north of Gonneville, with assays pending for four holes.
“A total of 70 drill sites are planned to be tested across the Hartog-Dampier area with drilling expected to continue and accelerate over the coming months as the geological model continues to be refined and permits are obtained for off-track drilling locations.
“Assay results are pending for a further 55 completed drill holes at Gonneville and Hartog, with laboratory turnaround times currently averaging approximately eight weeks,” Chalice said.
In the statement, CEO Dorsch, said: “With each new round of drilling results, the scale, quality and potential upside of this world-class critical minerals system just keeps getting better and better.”
“Notwithstanding the district-scale opportunity that exists along the 30km Julimar Complex to the north, these latest drill results from Gonneville have reminded us of the obvious growth potential just at Gonneville itself.
“Targeted drilling outside the November 2021 Mineral Resource pit shell has intersected extensive intervals of high-grade mineralisation that will be included in our next Resource update, which is on track to be delivered in June. This bodes well for the potential to expand the current high- grade in-pit Resource.
“One of the key emerging developments at Gonneville is that the high-grade extensions we are delineating at depth continue to confirm the emerging underground potential which is likely to be a key growth avenue for us into the future. Importantly everything we drill at depth continues to remain open.
“Our initial strategy will be to define Inferred Resources at depth to assist in determining the potential opportunity for a future underground mining operation, before upgrading these with in- fill drilling to Indicated Resources to underpin future underground mining studies.
“Our drilling to the north is still restricted by access constraints which we hope are resolved soon, however we are also very excited to see tantalising indications of an emerging mineralised system at the Hartog target, with several narrow intervals of ortho-magmatic nickel-copper sulphides observed in the right mafic-ultramafic rocks in recent drilling.
“This is an exciting development and the recent results reinforce the potential of the northern targets, which we plan to drill as our exploration effort expands.”
