Podium Minerals is just days away from revealing an updated mineral resource estimate for its Parks Reef platinum group metals project after receiving the final assays from stage 9 and 10 drilling at the site.
In August the company announced what it says is Australia’s first defined 5E PGM resource near Meekatharra in WA’s Mid West region. 5E PGM represents a combination of platinum, palladium, gold, rhodium and iridium compared with 3E PGM that only records platinum, palladium and gold.
Following a swag of significant results from its last two drill campaigns, Podium says it is on track to deliver its updated mineral resource estimate before the end of the month.
Among the latest assay highlights were a 19m intercept at 2.48 grams per tonne 5E PGM from 76m including a 2m hit at an impressive 12.9 g/t 5E PGM from 88m. The 2m section contained 1.03 g/t rhodium in addition to 0.39 g/t iridium.
Additional results highlighted a 31m intercept going 1.35 g/t 5E PGM from 189m including 2m at a solid 5.6 g/t from 212m. A third hole recorded 16m at 1.88 g/t 5E PGM from 169m including a 0.9m hit going 10.88 g/t 5E PGM.
Podium Minerals Managing Director, Sam Rodda said: “With these results Podium has completed a crucial step in our path towards growth and development of Parks Reef. The presence of high-grade zones and confirmation of rhodium and iridium throughout the orebody will allow us to optimise our resource modelling and studies to consider these areas.”
Podium says its inferred resource estimate is now 52.2 million tonnes at 1.64 grams per tonne for three million ounces of 5E PGM. It will use the latest results with new modelling to deliver a mineral resource upgrade this month to allow project studies to consider high-grade and bulk PGM mining options.
This week the company held a presentation at the South-West Connect ASX Showcase where Podium highlighted a potential timeline for the development of the Parks Reef project.
According to the presentation, the PGE explorer will begin working on both a mining study and a scoping study for the project this year with plans expected to be finalised by the end of the third quarter of next year. Product refinement studies will begin early next year with a pre-feasibility study expected to get underway by the beginning of the fourth quarter of 2023.
The Parks Reef orebody is more than 15km in length and remains open at depth. In April the company announced results of a diamond drill hole intercept of 5.7m at 2.14 g/t 5E PGM from 581m. At the time Podium believed the mineralisation could extend past this depth and planned further sampling.
The prediction has been proven with recent results showing a 16m hit going 1.34 g/t 5E PGM from 604m including a 2m intercept grading 2.26 g/t 5E PGM from 617m. The new 16m intersection can be broken down to grades of 0.63 g/t platinum, 0.65 g/t palladium, 0.03 g/t gold, 0.07 g/t rhodium and 0.03 g/t iridium.
In addition to current three-million-ounce 5E PGM resource, Podium says the project also contains about 104,000 tonnes of copper, 73,000 tonnes of nickel and 9000 tonnes of cobalt.
With its extensive strike length of more than 15km and an orebody that remains open at depth, the market meerkats will be keeping a close eye on what Podium can deliver with its updated mineral resource for Parks Reef that is expected before the end of this month.
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By Matt Birney
