Podium Minerals has continued its winning streak as it races towards proving up Australia’s first economic PGM deposit at the Parks Reef project in WA. Ongoing drilling has extended the footprint of the company’s discovery to nearly 7km of strike with results returned including intercepts of 19m at 2.11 g/t platinum group metals. The company is presently modelling its latest drill results for inclusion in an updated resource scheduled for release in October 2020.
The company’s Parks Reef project is in Western Australia’s Weld Range, between the regional mining centres of Cue and Meekatharra in the state’s Murchison mineral province. The 77 square kilometre project includes a strike of 15km of highly prospective stratigraphy hosting platinum group metals, or “PGM” with associated gold and copper mineralisation.
Podium’s ongoing drilling program at Parks Reef has outlined a resource along 6km of strike weighing in at an impressive 1.14 million ounces of combined platinum, palladium, and gold with an additional 37,300 contained tonnes of copper all within 100m of surface potentially supporting the case for an open pit mining operation.
Recent reverse circulation drilling has continued the company’s tour-de-force over the new discovery, with 17 drill holes extending the discovery to a total strike length of 6.9km and demonstrating that the PGM mineralisation is continuous across the entire strike length of the discovery.
Drilling has consistently defined broad intercepts of mineralisation along the contact between mafic and ultramafic rock units with two distinct zones of metal deposition being modelled by the company – an upper gold-copper rich zone and an underlying thick platinum-palladium rich lode.
In near surface drilling, Podium has continued to outline wide intercepts of PGMs including results of 19m at 2.11 g/t PGM, with 4m at 4.41 g/t PGM, from 18m down hole and 22m at 1.20 g/t PGM from 43m depth.
However, Podium’s deeper drilling over the target shows the PGM mineralisation is still going strong below 100m depth with the drill bit intersecting 26m at 1.52 g/t PGM from 124m and 15m at 1.40 g/t PGM from 141m.
These deeper intercepts are typical of PGM deposits in other parts of the world, such as the immense Bushveld Complex. PGM deposits in the Bushveld regularly extend to more than 1,000m below surface with the entire province estimated to host more than 17 billion tonnes of PGM rich ore. Podium’s deeper drilling at Park Reef is providing a hint of the potential of the discovery and paving the way for exponential growth of the existing resource.
Podium has also kicked off an expanded geochemical assaying program across the drilling data set to evaluate the extent and concentration of potential metal credits. Prospective metal credits include copper, which is trading at a five year high of around US$6,500 per tonne, and rhodium that continues to match the palladium price at a smoking hot US$2,175 an ounce.
Podium is presently modelling the results of the expanded Parks Reef drilling program and expects to release an upgraded resource for the project in October 2020.
Podium’s ongoing program at Parks Reef is designed to extend the strike length of the discovery out to more than 8.5km in the short term, ultimately testing entire 15 km of strike over time, which could significantly add to the size of the resource and improve the economics of the project.
Nonetheless, with drilling indicating that the PGM mineralisation may extend into the bowels of the earth and a range of metals in the deposit hitting 5 year highs, it’s looking like Podium has taken up poll position in the race to prove up Australia’s first economic PGM deposit.
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By Matt Birney
