Oakdale zeroes in on Julimar-like nickel targets

Oakdale Resources’ shares have been on a tear of late after the company joined the hunt for the next Julimar and quickly identified a bevy of targets across its Crown nickel-PGE project in Western Australia. The new project is a just stone’s throw away from Chalice Gold Mines’ headline-grabbing discovery, located a mere 9km to the east of Julimar delivering Oakdale a prime position in this emerging nickel terrane.

Having acquired the Crown project in mid-August, Oakdale shares have shot almost 1000 per cent higher from  0.3c at the time to a peak of  3.1c a month later on heavy volumes with investors pinning their ears back to get in on the ground floor of the aspiring junior explorer.

The company’s new Crown project is located 55km north-east of Perth and covers more than 90 square kilometres of the mineral field to the east of the Gonneville nickel-PGE discovery at Julimar. Oakdale’s tenure stretches over more than 15km of strike and takes in an interpreted sequence of prospective greenstones that also host the historic Chittering gold mine in the north of the project area.

Initial field reconnaissance has confirmed the presence of greenstone within the company’s tenement in addition to which leading geophysical consultants, Southern Geoscience, have acquired a comprehensive geophysical dataset over the project area and its surrounds. An initial interpretation of this magnetic data has revealed the presence of potentially nickeliferous ultramafic stratigraphy and highly prospective structural targets that show marked similarities to the environment surrounding the discovery at Julimar, adding further to the market’s excitement. 

Oakdale Resources Executive Chairman, Chris Gale said:

“The reprocessed geophysical data has confirmed to us that we have a similar geological setting as the nearby Julimar discovery which is tremendously gratifying for us. After taking this project on we now know we are well and truly in the hunt for a discovery at Crown and we look forward to completing access arrangements and getting to work. Chalice’s Julimar Nickel Palladium discovery has opened up the significant potential of this area and we are encouraged in our progress and look forward to the next steps.”

The company is now expediting the grant of the tenement and is progressing discussions with various landowners, native title groups and government agencies to streamline this process. At the same time, a program of detailed structural and geological mapping has commenced to assist with the targeting of future on-ground exploration.

Initial field work across the Crown project will include reconnaissance sampling and systematic soil geochemistry to delineate drill targets as Oakdale pursues its own discoveries in WA’s South West mineral field.

Elsewhere, the company has continued exploration across its auriferous projects in the United States, with ongoing drilling at Lambarson Canyon and an expected move to the Douglas Canyon, in the south of Nevada in the coming weeks.

Drilling at Douglas Canyon will test a series of high-grade silver-gold targets along a recognised epithermal trend, with previous surface sampling returning samples that tipped the scales at an impressive 18 g/t gold and 398 g/t silver.

Oakdale’s canny acquisitions have clearly caught investors’ attention as it rapidly fills its dance card, ramping up its exploration across two continents.  With the Crown nickel project in WA now joining a suite of high-grade gold targets in the deserts of Nevada – an enviable project package, placing the company in a prime position for ongoing success.

Oakdale shares closed at 2.5c on Thursday, and no doubt the many who have jumped aboard this fast-moving train can see more ahead for this budding junior explorer. 

Is your ASX listed company doing something interesting? Contact: matt.birney@businessnews.com.au