St George Mining is set to hit the ground running in the new year with ongoing exploration at its Mt Alexander project continuing to provide valuable insights into the rapidly developing nickel project. Geophysical surveying has highlighted a swag of new sulphide targets for drill testing whilst the company’s program of metallurgical test work has delivered excellent recoveries of both nickel and copper from the Stricklands ore body.
The company has flagged a rapid return to drilling early in the new year with eleven new electromagnetic, or “EM” conductors being identified through recent down hole surveys, with management expecting to begin resource definition drilling over the shallow sulphide ore positions at Investigators and Cathedrals in January 2021.
St George Mining Executive Chairman, John Prineas said: “We have secured a diamond rig for January and look forward to starting 2021 with a new massive sulphide discovery.”
“We believe our high-grade nickel-copper sulphides are amongst the best mineralisation discovered in Western Australia with a combination of high-grades of nickel, copper, cobalt and platinum group metals that is unmatched by other discoveries.”
“Thorough metallurgical test work is required to develop a flowsheet that can maximise the value of all these metals in a potential mining and processing operation. Positive test work results have been delivered by work in Perth and Canada. The test work will be finalised next year, allowing for completion of a scoping study for a starter mine at Mt Alexander.”
The Mt Alexander nickel sulphide project is located in the mineral rich Eastern Goldfields of Western Australia and lies approximately 100km west of the mining centre of Leonora. The project consists of a strategic land holding over the emerging Cathedrals Belt where the company’s nickel sulphide discoveries stretch across more than 16km of strike.
St George’s 2020 exploration program primarily focused on detailed exploration over the Stricklands, Investigators, Fairbridge, and Cathedrals prospects and has included resource drilling and metallurgical test work in preparation for the finalisation of a scoping study over the Stricklands deposit.
The company has received the interim results from this test work, with the Stricklands ores showing robust recoveries of both copper and nickel. Blended samples of oxide and fresh rock ores show recoveries of up to 93 per cent copper and 84 per cent nickel through a conventional flotation processing circuit, which bodes well for ongoing development work and also allows the company to proceed with its studies across the deposit.
The next phase of work at Stricklands includes the finalisation of the maiden resource over the deposit in addition to a proposed open pit mine design. The data and designs will all be fed into the developing scoping study for presentation early next year.
St George is also looking to potentially bring two additional prospects into its mine plan, with 10,000m of reverse circulation drilling being designed over the Investigators and Cathedrals prospects. Drilling will infill the recognised oxide and sulphide mineralisation delineated over the discoveries and will also test a number of secondary down-hole EM targets. The updated development program will then extend across three known deposits and 3km of strike.
Interestingly, the company’s geophysical program has also continued to meet with success, with recent down-hole surveying of drill holes MAD185, 192 and 193 identifying no less than eleven new targets on the western extremities of the Cathedrals Trend.
The new down-hole EM targets at West End represent a smorgasbord of targets for drill testing, with the strongest target lighting up at a whopping 55,550 Siemens, making for a compelling target for priority drilling once the diamond drill hits site in late January 2021.
With a horde of new deeper EM targets emerging across the Mt Alexander terrane and both resource drilling and scoping work taking shape in parallel, St George is beginning to transform its discovery on the Cathedrals belt from an exploration play to a potential development story as the ASX-listed company looks towards to 2021.
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