St George Mining has announced a major expansion of its exploration with significant programs planned for all four of its WA based projects.
Work at Mt Alexander will target nickel-copper-platinum group elements, or PGEs using seismic and electromagnetic surveys.
The emphasis will be on underexplored parts of the strongly mineralised Cathedrals Belt and adjacent Mt Alexander Greenstone Belt.
Drilling to follow-up geophysical surveys at its Paterson project is planned to start in May, with Winu lookalike deposits a key focus. At St George’s Ajana and Broadview projects Nova/Bollinger and Julimar style mafic intrusion hosted nickel-copper-PGE targets will be drilled.
In the Paterson province, St George plans to start an 18-hole diamond and RC drill program this month.
The work will follow-up 2021 results along a regional anticline axis the company says has strong similarities to Rio Tinto’s major Winu copper-gold discovery, 50km to the southwest.
Winu has a resource of 608 million tonnes at 0.4 per cent copper and 0.3 g/t gold containing 2.5 million tonnes of copper and 5.9 million ounces of gold.
According to the company, Paterson project air-core drilling in 2021 intersected lower Yeneena Group metasediments that host large copper-gold deposits in the region.
Chalcopyrite and locally intense alteration were observed by St George in several air-core holes presenting an attractive drill target.
St George’s new Ajana project covers 330 square kilometres in the Northampton base metal field, 63km north of Geraldton in the WA’s Mid West region.
The company completed an airborne magnetic survey in April 2022 and the data defined a very unusual, 20km long interpreted intrusion considered prospective for nickel-copper-PGEs according to the company.
Management says preliminary interpretation shows the large Ajana magnetic anomaly includes several concentric features and is cut by the same dykes that host the historic lead and zinc sulphide deposits at Northampton.
At its Broadview project in the WA Wheatbelt, an airborne electromagnetic survey is planned by St George with drilling to proceed as soon as access permissions are obtained.
The company says soil auger results above the interpreted positions of two large mafic intrusions demonstrate potential for nickel-copper-PGEs within a similar setting to Chalice Mining’s Julimar discovery.
The Broadview tenements are 120km southeast of Perth and contain two parallel 25km long northeast trending strongly magnetic features, interpreted by St George to potentially represent two large mafic or ultramafic intrusions.
The company believes the magnetic features cut across the regional northwest trending geology and could be associated with the craton-scale domain boundary interpreted at the eastern end of the licences. The interpretation shows similarities to the geological setting of Chalice Mining’s Julimar nickel-copper-PGE discovery.
With the addition of and focus on three projects outside its flagship high-grade nickel sulphide Mt Alexander, St George sees itself as growth-driven with a reinvigorating high-impact exploration campaign planned.
The company says it now has four highly prospective battery metals projects at differing stages of advancement.
At Mt Alexander, St George has several shallow, extremely high-grade nickel deposits with copper and PGE credits over a strike of 5km. Recent drilling has demonstrated the potential to extend the known deposits.
Management is now working on a JORC resource prior to considering development economics and opportunities.
Future drilling at Mt Alexander will focus on testing new conceptual and geophysical targets as well as growing the footprint of known high-grade shallow mineralisation to further St George’s development ambitions.
John Prineas, St George Mining’s Executive Chairman, said: “We have a clear path to commence high-impact drilling across all four projects. With important survey works and diamond drilling about to start as part of this step-up in exploration activities, St George is preparing for a period of busy and exciting news flow at a time when investors are rewarding discovery success in the battery minerals space.”
St George has long believed in a deeper and larger nickel sulphide deposit at Mt Alexander. There have been many technical successes, however the chestnut has refused to be cracked so far. St George is returning with deeper penetrating EM and seismic surveys combined with enhanced structural and lithological interpretations.
Will the latest exploration finally provide the breakthrough for St George?
Is your ASX-listed company doing something interesting? Contact: matt.birney@businessnews.com.au
By Matt Birney
