Western Mines Group (ASX: WMG) has leapt into a phase three drill program at its Mulga Tank nickel project in Western Australia’s Eastern Goldfields region, with plans for a 23-hole, 7000m campaign to infill and extend mineralisation using a combination of reverse-circulation (RC) and diamond-drilling.
The company will be drilling five RC holes for 2000m with the assistance of a co-funded exploration-incentive-scheme (EIS) State Government grant. Management says the extensional drilling will target ground to the south of the recent high-grade results from its phase two campaign.
The five RC holes have been designed to test interpreted komatiite channels. The company will conduct multiple downhole electromagnetic (DHEM) surveys to target several diamond drill and RC holes where shallow high-grade sulphides were observed, including one diamond hole drilled to a depth of 1722m.
A further deep diamond hole drill target sourced from a MobileMT anomaly will be wedged off a recently-drilled hole in the direction of the anomaly. The company says it may drill additional holes in the core area of the project to follow up on high-grade results from its previous campaign.
A MobileMT survey is the latest innovation in airborne EM technology and combines the latest electronics technology and signal-processing techniques to assist with identifying magnetic bodies concealed underground.
We’ve planned a combination of further RC and diamond drilling for the third quarter of 2024. The RC drilling to date has been very good at quickly, and relatively cheaply, defining extensive disseminated nickel sulphide mineralisation, and also encountered some shallow high-grade semi-massive sulphide results.
Western Mines Group Managing Director Dr Caedmon Marriott
Marriott added that the phase three program has been designed to extend mineralisation south of previous high-grade RC holes and further infill drilling to attempt to link mineralisation in the core areas across ground to other drillholes that provided worthwhile results.
A recent capital raise of about $1.5 million from a placement to international mining investor Dundee Corporation and several existing shareholders will fund the combination drilling, with an expectation that the DHEM results, ongoing modelling and prospect-targeting activities will uncover further drillholes to pursue.
The Mulga Tank nickel-copper-cobalt-platinum group elements (PGE) project sits on the Minigwal greenstone belt and drilling within the past year has delineated significant nickel sulphides and a mineralised system within its ultramafic complex.
Western Mines reported earlier this week that it hit almost 500m at 0.29 per cent nickel in the top 600m of its first deep diamond drillhole of the year at Mulga Tank, while testing another conductive MobileMT anomaly around about 1160m below surface. The near-vertical drillhole into the project is the third drilled with 50 per cent funding assistance through the EIS.
Assays highlighted the existence of almost continuous disseminated nickel mineralisation with elevated nickel and sulphur, along with highly-anomalous copper and PGE.
A 494m intercept, between 108m and 602m, produced solid nickel intercepts including 58m at 0.34 per cent nickel from 204m with 8m at 0.48 per cent from 210m and 10m at 0.4 per cent in the upper “disseminated” zone. A deeper hit of 19m at 0.44 per cent nickel from 378m including 8m at 0.54 per cent from 389m showed there is still mineralisation at depth.
Western Mines seems to be finding nickel with every drill campaign at its intriguing Mulga Tank complex and it will be interesting to see what it can unearth in its phase three program.
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