4.4% nickel for St George at Mt Alexander
ASX listed St George Mining has encountered further high-grade nickel-copper sulphide mineralisation at its Stricklands prospect, located 100km west of Leonora in the north-eastern Goldfields of W.A.
The new diamond drill hole at the Mt Alexander project was completed to the west of last year’s spectacular 17m intercept that went 3.01% nickel, 1.31% copper and, 0.13% cobalt from just 37.45m down hole.
The latest round of drilling produced a16.1m intersection of combined semi-massive, stringer and disseminated nickel sulphide mineralisation from 33.1m down hole.
The best intersection was a 1.0m section of semi-massive nickel sulphides from 48.2m, with average XRF readings of 4.4% nickel.
The mineralised ultramafic at Stricklands may extend up to 400m along strike in a southwest-northeast direction according to the company.
John Prineas, St George Mining’s Executive Chairman, said: “The new intersection of nickel sulphides indicates that the mineralised ultramafic extends further west and remains open in the western section of the large electromagnetic anomaly at Stricklands.”
“Drilling in the current programme has successfully identified additional high-grade nickel mineralisation in the expansive Stricklands system.”
“Further drilling will be planned at Stricklands after the down-hole electromagnetic survey results from the recently completed drill holes are reviewed and interpreted.”
The preliminary results support the potential for further significant widths and strike extensions of the high-grade ore unit.
The mineralised intersections at Stricklands are located within a large, subsurface conductive electromagnetic anomaly, extending over an area that is 200m long and 150m wide.
The company is undertaking down-hole electromagnetic surveys for all holes completed at Stricklands to test for potential off-hole conductive nickel sulphide targets that were not intersected in the drill trace.
The drill rig has now mobilised to the Investigators prospect, located about 1km west of Stricklands, where deeper electromagnetic conductors over 1km of strike were modelled from a sensitive ground geophysical survey completed in 2017.
Five deep diamond drill holes for 1,000 metres are planned for the Investigators prospect to test this geophysical anomaly.
A drill hole completed near the centre of Investigators in 2017, returned a very high grade intercept of 5.3m @ 4.95% nickel, 2.75% copper, 0.16% cobalt and 4.55g/t combined PGEs from 157.9m down hole.
This included 3m @ 6.40% nickel, 3.55% copper, 0.21% cobalt and 5.25g/t combined PGEs from 159.38m.
The rig will then move onto the Cathedrals prospect, located 1.5km east-northeast of Stricklands to complete one deep diamond hole.
Previous drilling at Cathedrals returned an intersection of 3.28m @ 5.77% nickel, 2.43% copper, 0.18% cobalt and 5.05g/t combined PGE’s from 52.75m depth, earlier this year.
With nickel prices sitting comfortably above A$17,000 per tonne and higher-grade forms of nickel becoming heralded for their use in lithium ion batteries, a cashed-up St George is well placed to make a significant find at Mt Alexander.
Preliminary metallurgical test work has produced high recoveries above 99% for nickel and copper in concentrates for the Mt Alexander ores, with no deleterious materials identified.
The ores produce a premium nickel and copper concentrate, with higher grades than that reported from optimisation work on the Nova-Bollinger deposit and also contain payable amounts of cobalt, PGE and gold credits.
The company is now awaiting assay results from its Stricklands program and commencing its exciting maiden deep drilling programs at the Investigators and Cathedrals prospects.
Management remain confident that an economic nickel resource will be defined at the Mt Alexander project, given the mineralisation is very shallow and contains significant metal credits.
The bulk of nickel production in Western Australia is now underground, so an economic discovery at 30m depth would make for a very cost-effective project in comparable terms.
Outside of Mt Alexander, St George controls the Hawaii nickel project, located about 50km north of its flagship project and located on the prospective Ida Fault structure.
The project was acquired from Nickel West in October 2015 and is considered prospective for both nickel and gold mineralisation.
Northern splay fault extensions off the main Ida Fault structure host the Agnew gold mine and the impressive Cosmos nickel complex, that contained a pre-mining resource exceeding 500,000 tonnes of contained nickel.
St George also hold the East Laverton project, located 230km northeast of Kalgoorlie, in an under-explored and highly prospective greenstone belt, on the eastern margin of the Yilgarn Craton.
It is a frontier exploration location covering over 2,000 square kilometres in area, with significant potential to host new nickel sulphide, gold and volcanogenic massive sulphide-style deposits similar to DeGrussa and Horseshoe Lights.