$440K govt grant to extend Western Mines | Australian Markets

Western Mines Group has been granted two purposes below the WA Government’s Exploration Incentive Scheme (EIS) for a complete of $440,000 to co-fund more drilling on the company’s Mulga Tank nickel-copper project within the Eastern Goldfields.

Both awards comprise the utmost 50 per cent co-funding out there below the federal government incentive program and had been awarded within a aggressive utility course of.

WMG will put the funding in the direction of the direct drilling prices of three diamond holes to additional take a look at the primary physique of the company’s Mulga Tank complicated and an interpreted komatiite channel system that’s 8.2 kilometres northwest of the complicated.

The work will embrace a 1500-metre deep diamond gap into the Mulga Tank ultramafic complicated to comply with up outcomes from a earlier diamond drilling program and an EIS-funded gap that was drilled final 12 months.

The new gap, designated EIS8, will goal the japanese portion of a Mobile magneto-telluric anomaly on the base of the intrusion. It will cross close to increased grade geochemical outcomes from a earlier diamond gap put into the zone.

WMG believes the focused zone may signify a sulphide-enriched keel and/or a feeder vent for the general intrusion.

The company has additionally designed two more diamond drill holes to probe to about 700m depth in a single of the quite a few elongate inferred komatiitic channels in its contiguous exploration licence, about 8.2km northwest of the proposed single deep gap.

Komatiite rocks are a kind of ultramafic mantle-derived volcanic rock outlined as having crystallised from a lava of a minimum of 18 per cent magnesium oxide and containing low silicon, potassium and aluminium and high to extraordinarily high magnesium.

The uncommon rocks nearly all fashioned during the Archaean Eon, between 4.03–2.5 billion years in the past, though a few youthful examples are recognized.

Geographically, komatiites are primarily distributed to Archaean defend areas – together with Mulga Tank for instance – and happen with different ultramafic and high-magnesian mafic volcanic rocks in Archaean greenstone belts.

WMG first examined the Mulga Tank channel system during a belt-wide reverse circulation drilling program final 12 months.

The two new holes will comply with up the outcomes of two holes drilled below a earlier EIS grant into one of the elongate zones. They will take a look at a physique interpreted from aeromagnetic imagery to be about 1.3km long and which drilling confirms as high-magnesium oxide olivine cumulate/dunite and komatiite lithologies, with seen nickel sulphide mineralisation.

The deliberate holes will study the stratigraphy of the komatiite system and goal basal contact that final 12 months’s reverse circulation holes didn’t attain.

The company has undertaken numerous diamond and reverse circulation drilling packages at its Mulga Tank project over the previous two years, which have demonstrated vital nickel sulphide mineralisation and an in depth nickel sulphide mineral system within the Mulga Tank ultramafic complicated.

The company’s exploration has included three deep co-funded diamond holes drilled with the help of its EIS grants in rounds 26 and 28 of the State Government’s co-funded exploration drilling program.

Previous EIS awards have been instrumental within the discovery of an in depth nickel sulphide mineral system within the Mulga Tank ultramafic complicated.

The proposed deep EIS gap, EIS8, will look to take a look at the basal contact of the complicated and can goal the japanese portion of a conductive MobileMT anomaly that was “grazed” by a non-EIS gap.

That gap returned 96m at 0.40 per cent nickel and 0.016 per cent cobalt from 1208m, together with 38m at 0.56 per cent nickel and 0.016 per cent cobalt from 1262m, and 8m at 1.11 per cent nickel and 0.018 per cent cobalt from 1270m at a depth corresponding to the MT anomaly.

These outcomes are hosted within closely disseminated sulphide mineralisation that would signify Perseverance-style “cloud” sulphides occurring close to a basal large sulphide accumulation.

WMG has fastidiously deliberate a combine of the 2 drilling strategies at Mulga Tank, utilizing reverse circulation rigs to scout and infill earlier drilling after which to prove-up the extent of shallow disseminated nickel sulphide mineralisation.

The consequence of this work is mirrored within the company’s giant mineral useful resource modelling launched two weeks in the past, containing an eye-watering estimated 5.3 million tonnes of contained nickel, 257,000t cobalt, 161,000t copper and 1.1M ounces mixed platinum and palladium.

The useful resource included a beautiful mixed indicated and inferred complete of 1.97 billion tonnes at 0.27 per cent nickel, 131 elements per million (ppm) cobalt, 82ppm copper and 17 elements per billion mixed platinum and palladium.

WMG’s diamond drilling program contains particular areas of investigation by testing deeper targets for basal large sulphides doubtlessly internet hosting nickel, copper and platinum group components.

So far, the company has solely drilled the comparatively shallow disseminated zone within the more densely drilled elements of its central grid over the complicated. Ample space is indicated throughout the magnetic signature of the central complicated space for lateral extensions of this zone.

Additionally, the company has solely scratched the sting of the doable significance of the a number of north and northwest trending a number of komatiitic feeder/channel system that radiates outwards from the primary complicated for as a lot as 15km.

And the company has but to flesh out the extent of the deeper large sulphide system which may be lurking at depth in or close to the keel of the intrusive complicated. The subsequent deep gap will help resolve this.

Under the phrases of the 2 EIS grants, WMG can kick off drilling of the latest holes from June 1 and the work shall be included in its exploration plans for the 12 months.

The present nickel price has elevated by US$305 (A$478) per tonne for the reason that starting of the 12 months and is presently US$15,606 (A$24,458) per tonne, offering a great portent for the project’s potential.

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