Western Mines nickel feast rises from Mulga Tank play

Western Mines Group says it has found nickel sulphide “nearly everywhere we drill” after plunging 750m into a third deep diamond hole at its Mulga Tank nickel project in Western Australia’s Yilgarn region.

The hole plumbs the centre of the high-grade area of the known nickel mineralisation defined by previous intensive drilling and is slated to press on to the base of the dunite complex at about 1200m depth. The work is being co-funded by the State Government through its Exploration Incentive Scheme (EIS).

The multiple objectives of the hole include infilling the existing reverse-circulation (RC) and diamond drilling pattern to further confirm the laterally-extensive, thick zone of disseminated nickel mineralisation at relatively shallow depth. It is also aimed at obtaining large diameter HQ core from the upper section of the hole for metallurgical testwork on the disseminated material.

Additionally, its deeper aim is to test a conductive Mobile Magnetotelluric (MobileMT) anomaly at depths interpreted to be near the basal contact at the keel of the complex, which could represent high-grade massive nickel sulphide mineralisation.

The company says its visual observation and logging confirm the hole has already intersected several remobilised sulphide veinlets oblique to the core and sometimes occurring in vein sets currently interpreted as indicative of a deep sulphide source. Hand-held portable XRF readings of some of the sulphide blebs are showing significant grades of up to 42.2 per cent nickel.

Sulphide mineralisation is encountered nearly everywhere we drill and this hole is continuing that trend with cumulatively around ~300m of disseminated and blebby sulphide mineralisation observed so far, similar to the other deep diamond holes drilled last year and has already encountered numerous remobilised sulphide veinlets, with measurements suggesting a possible source at depth below the current drilling.

The hole is the company’s third diamond drillhole which has met the criteria for EIS assistance, with 50 per cent of the drilling costs co-funded by the government up to $220,000.

It is this year’s first diamond core hole for the company. It is collared between its two previous EIS holes and sits in the centre of a regular 200m-by-200m pattern of RC holes focussed on the higher-grade mineralisation in the ultramafic intrusive.

About 600m of the core has already been cut and submitted for analysis.

Western Mines says it is encouraged that its latest hole once again confirms the disseminated nickel sulphide mineralisation in the project’s upper section, while the remobilised veinlets observed in the core hint strongly at the potential for the complex to host a hybrid type-one or two nickel sulphide mineral system containing both disseminated and massive sulphide components.

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