Metal Hawk is onto a new high grade massive sulphide nickel strike in WA after a one metre hit went 5.89 per cent nickel from its maiden drilling campaign at the company’s Berehaven nickel project just east of Kalgoorlie. The high-grade intercept at the Commodore prospect has confirmed a new greenfields nickel discovery and the company is now set to unleash the drill rig to test its extents.
Commodore sits in the south-west area of the Berehaven tenure, just 5km north of the historical Blair nickel mine that churned out some 1.26 million tonnes at an impressive 2.62 per cent nickel for nearly 33,000 tonnes of contained metal until mine closure in 2008.
The high-grade intercept from 144 metres down-hole comes on the back of assay results from just the lower section of one hole from the maiden three-hole campaign. Results from the remainder of the hole and the other two holes remain pending.
Management says the nickel hit lies beneath a 12m sequence of highly weathered ultramafic rocks where a 9m interval going 0.31 per cent nickel and 185 parts per million copper was intercepted from 135m. Metal Hawk believes the presence of mineralisation in the weathered zone suggests potential for more nickel sulphides at depth.
The company says downhole electromagnetic surveys, or “DHEM”, conducted in all three holes have also generated a conductive target at about 120m below the depth of drilling to date.
Metal Hawk now plans to test the target conductor with a deeper diamond drilling campaign next month. DHEM surveys from the deeper drilling are also on the cards as the company seeks to better define the new target.
Further reverse circulation drilling is also set to commence at Commodore in October.
Metal Hawk Managing Director, Will Belbin said:“We believe that the mineralised sulphide zone at Commodore may represent part of a significant untested komatiite system. This is an outstanding result at such an early stage and certainly validates our geological model and exploration targeting. The Berehaven Project is incredibly underexplored for nickel sulphides and we have several kilometres of prospective stratigraphy along strike from Commodore.”
The Berehaven tenure covers more than 95 square kilometres and reportedly hosts several underexplored target areas. The drilling at Commodore focused on an interpreted north-northwest trending ultramafic rock sequence stretching for up to 10km in length.
According to the company, no previous nickel sulphide exploration had been undertaken at Commodore prior to Metal Hawk’s campaign.
World nickel demand has already more than doubled since 2001, according to a recently commissioned research report by the Minerals Council of Australia - a mining industry association representing Australia’s minerals sector.
The report concludes that global demand for nickel could soar by another 67 per cent by the end of the decade due to its application in lithium-ion batteries used in the budding electric vehicle industry.
Metal Hawk will no doubt be hoping its next drilling sortie at Berehaven is able to tease out more nickel rich massive sulphides as appetite for the metal around the world continues to grow.
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By Matt Birney
