A new high grade nickel discovery has occurred at Karora Resources Beta Hunt Mine at Kambalda in Western Australia. Named the 50C Nickel Trough, the discovery is the second new nickel discovery at the mine in the last six months and compliments an increasing gold system at the mine.
With a key nickel intersection of 11.6% Ni over 4.6 metres, including 18.4% Ni over 2.2 metres, the 50C Nickel Trough has the potential to repeat the Beta zone which has delivered over 32,000 tonnes of nickel to date. While the results for nickel have been quite promising, the drilling for nickel also intersected gold. In the key nickel intersection above, a gold intersection included 5.2 g/t Au over 3.2 metres. However the highlight of gold intersects included 2.7g/t Au over 12.0 meters, including 10.1g/t Au over 1.4 metre. The recent gold drilling has also indicated extensions to the known gold mineralised system at Beta Hunt to be over 3.5km along strike.
Paul Huet, Chairman and CEO of Karora said, “I am very excited with the latest set of drill results from Beta Hunt, which continues to return outstanding intersections and now a second new nickel discovery, all within close proximity to existing mine development. While we are focused on gold production as our core strategy, the potential by-product credits from these nickel grades, as high as 18%, are undoubtedly substantial. While our drilling in the 50C discovery area was aimed at nickel targets, our efforts also returned some meaningful gold assays including 5.2 g/t over 3.2 metres in hole G50-22-005E. These gold results demonstrate yet another potential area to add to the growing gold resource at Beta Hunt in the near term and have extended the strike extent of Beta Hunt gold mineralisation to 3.5 kilometres from 3.1 kilometres previously.”