Follow-up drilling at Dusty hits massive nickel sulphides for Toro

The Dusty nickel project in WA’s north-eastern Goldfields continues to deliver for Toro Energy after follow-up drilling at its recently discovered Dimma deposit hit massive and semi-massive nickel sulphides.

The company says spot analysis by portable X-ray fluorescence suggests a nickel sulphide range of between 1 per cent and 3.1 per cent nickel.

The Dimma discovery was originally highlighted last month after a diamond drill hole hit a 3.6m section of massive sulphides from 244.1m.

Toro says the follow-up diamond drill hole was highlighted by the intersection of a zone of intermittent nickel-sulphide mineralisation that extends for more than 20m and includes 2.5m of continuous massive nickel sulphide from 314.7m downhole.

The latest drill results also include a 0.35m intercept of semi-massive nickel-sulphide from 296.5m downhole whilst a 0.15m zone of semi-massive nickel-sulphide occurs outside the zone from 304.2m downhole.

The Dusty project falls within Toro’s fully owned Yandal gold project and is just 50km east of BHP’s world-class Mt Keith nickel deposit.

Toro says the Dimma discovery highlights the nickel-sulphide prospectivity of the Dusty komatiite that has a strike length of at least 7.5km.

The latest result follows the first hole drilled 400m south-south-east of the recent Jumping Jack discovery, leaving the Dimma mineralisation open in all directions.

Jumping Jack was discovered early last month with a 3.4m intersection from 240.3m including a 1.4m-thick lens of massive nickel sulphides.

The company believes the two recent massive-sulphide zones are in the same stratigraphic position as the Houli Dooley and the original Dusty discovery to the north.

Whilst nickel is predominantly used in the construction of stainless steel, the commodity is tipped to have a bright future in the green energy space because of its ongoing use in the production of two of the most commonly used battery chemistries: nickel-cobalt-aluminium and nickel-manganese-cobalt.

At present about 7 per cent of nickel finds its way into batteries but the figure is tipped to grow to about 40 per cent by 2040.

Each of Toro’s four deposits, named after members of the Richmond Football Club premiership team from 2017, remain open at depths above and below the current positions drilled.

Geochemical sampling of the mineralised core found at Dimma is progressing, however the company says because of industry-wide delays in laboratories throughout Australia assay results are not expected until later this year.

Whilst Richmond got knocked out of the AFL final series over the weekend, Toro and its Tigers themed deposits appear to be going from strength to strength this year as the company continues to unearth positive nickel results at the Dusty project.

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