Infill drill testing firms up Ardea high-grade WA | Australian Markets

Ardea Resources has accomplished a 287-hole infill reverse circulation drilling program to help potential useful resource classification upgrades at its huge Goongarrie Hub nickel project, 5 kilometres south of Menzies within the Western Australian Goldfields area.

The company drilled 186 reverse circulation holes at its Big Four prospect for 10,238 metres plus 101 holes for 6332m at Scotia Dam for a complete marketing campaign of 16,570m. The holes had been sampled over their full depths at 2m intervals.

The program was launched final July as half of Ardea’s management of its ongoing $98.5 million definitive feasibility examine (DFS) for its Kalgoorlie nickel-Goongarrie Hub project by its subsidiary Kalgoorlie Nickel.

The DFS is being funded by an worldwide consortium comprising Sumitomo Metal Mining and Mitsubishi Corporation.

The infill drilling marketing campaign goals to improve the project’s shallow lateritic nickel-cobalt sources to a measured – or higher – useful resource class in materials slated for the open pit mining within the first 5 years that contains the forecast project payback period.

In each areas, infill drilling was usually performed on 40m gap intervals alongside traces. The latest traces had been launched between earlier 80m-spaced traces – together with earlier drilling – to close the grid spacing to an total 40m by 40m protection.

At Big Four, the highest three outcomes embrace 28m at 1.12 per cent nickel from 10m, together with 16m at 1.33 per cent nickel from 16m, 26m at 1.16 per cent nickel from 16m and 22m at 1.30 per cent nickel from 14m, together with a 14m hit at 1.65 per cent nickel from 18m.

At Big Four, 237 important intercepts above 0.5 per cent nickel over 2m or more had been recorded in 167 holes.

At Scotia Dam, drilling nailed an spectacular 32m at 1.17 per cent nickel from 18m, together with 20m at 1.44 per cent nickel from 22m, 50m at 1.01 per cent nickel from 28m and 38m at 1.04 per cent nickel from 20m, together with an 18m hit at 1.33 per cent nickel from 38m.

The drilling program at Scotia Dam yielded 107 important intercepts in 85 holes.

These drill outcomes from the Big Four and Scotia Dam deposits spotlight the high grade and continuity of the nickel-cobalt mineralisation on the Kalgoorlie nickel project (KNP)–Goongarrie Hub. This drill program will help the KNPL workforce’s ongoing work to increase a measured mineral useful resource classification and develop a strong mining plan with most confirmed and possible ore reserves to underpin the project DFS. This is especially important for the primary 5 years of manufacturing.

The two areas drilled are about 4.8km other than both finish of a 7.7km strike zone of intensive useful resource drilling space that extends south from the Goongarrie Hub processing website. The websites are in north-south trending olivine-pyroxene cumulate ultramafic volcanic rock, referred to as the ‘Goongarrie Line’ protolith. A protolith is the unique or father or mother unmetamorphosed rock from which metamorphic rocks are shaped.

At Goongarrie, the rocks have been subject to intense deformation in affiliation with the Bardoc Tectonic Zone, the place much less resistant rocks erode or climate more simply than surrounding, more resistant rocks. The course of usually results in a sloping, dished or hollowed-out receding floor in contrast with the encircling, more resistant rocks.

Along the Goongarrie line, the mixture of intense deformation, fracturing and shearing has opened a plumbing system that lets rain and floor waters from the traditional Goongarrie Lake system into the host rocks.

The mixed results of the destruction of rock cloth, high temperatures and groundwater circulation over eons promoted intense leaching of silica and magnesia minerals from the protolith host.

The course of has resulted in areas of greater grade and more intensive nickel-cobalt mineralisation, finally creating the Goongarrie project’s premium high-pressure acid leach feedstock.

Ardea believes its latest drilling program has validated the company’s 2023 pre-feasibility examine pit modelling at Big Four and Scotia Dam and factors to the potential for pit optimisations to select up more nickel mineralisation, partly from the deeper drilling that has persistently exceeded historic drill packages.

The company has collected samples of a key mineralised neutraliser from the semi-weathered saprock zone – beneath the laterite – for bench-scale testwork within the hope it may be included within the deliberate pit optimisations within the examine.

The inclusion of the fabric is predicted to yield further nickel-cobalt mineralisation that will help deepening of the deliberate open pits.

The company’s mixed reverse circulation and core drilling packages have additionally assisted metallurgical evaluation of the handling, circulation traits and beneficiation improve components of the plant feedstock and can contribute to Ardea’s DFS issues.

Ardea expects its useful resource definition drill testing will wind up within the June quarter. An further confirmatory diamond drilling program required as half of the company’s deliberate useful resource classification upgrades started final October and ought to be completed at about the identical time.

Ardea can be operating a reverse circulation drilling program at its Goongarrie South prospect, instantly north of its processing plant, which has the Goongarrie Hub’s highest grade nickel sources.

The company can be receiving a common influx of analyses from infill drill testing at its satellite tv for pc Highway and Siberia North nickel-cobalt deposits.

The Kalgoorlie nickel project and its sub-sets within the Goongarrie Hub make up a world-class nickel-cobalt and demanding mineral deposits, which embrace the most important lateritic nickel-cobalt useful resource in Australia. The 854 million tonne sources at 0.71 per cent nickel and 0.045 per cent cobalt for six.1Mt of contained nickel and 386kt of contained cobalt can be one of the world’s greatest.

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