Morning News Bites for September 22. Macquarie CEO to advise Federal Government on energy road map, global banks aim to contain damage over leaked documents showing they transferred more than $US2 trillion ($2.8 trillion) in suspect funds over nearly two decades and former Victorian Premier Jeff Kennett accuses the state leaders of not accepting responsibility for coronavirus second wave.
AIC Mines Limited has provided an update on drilling which has commenced at its Lamil Gold-Copper Project, located 30 kilometres west of the Telfer Gold-Copper Mine in the Paterson Province of Western Australia. The drilling will focus on high priority geophysical and geochemical targets centred on the Lamil Main Dome prospect area. This initial phase will comprise up to 7,500m of aircore and reverse circulation (“RC”) drilling and approximately 2,500m of diamond drilling. All the targets are under cover (up to 100m) and have never been drill tested before, with wide-spaced aircore and RC drilling to be used to gather litho-geochemical data over the prospect area and test the basement-cover sequence interface. Deeper diamond drilling will be used to gather information about the basement geology (i.e. the target horizon) and structure, with additional surface geochemical and geophysical surveys also underway.
Auroch Minerals Limited announced RC drilling has commenced at the recently acquired Firefly and Sinclair North prospects, part of the Leinster Nickel Project in Leinster in Western Australia. The 1,000m drill programme will be Auroch’s first phase of exploration on these prospects after entering into a binding agreement with Jindalee Resources to earn up to 70% of a four tenement package. Historic RAB drilling on both prospects identified fertile nickeliferous ultramafic unitsin the weathered and transition zones, with the best intercepts including 23m @ 0.53% Ni from 13m, including 1m @ 0.86% Ni from 22m, 5m @ 0.74% Ni from 44m and 4m @ 0.53% Ni from 16m.
Chalice Gold Mines Limited reported exciting preliminary results from a recently completed airborne electromagnetic (AEM) survey over granted tenure within the Julimar Project in Western Australia. Highlights include three new large EM anomalies identified (Hartog, Baudin and Jansz) in recent airborne EM survey. New Hartog EM Anomaly extends ~6.5km beyond the northern limit of drilling at the ~1.6km x 0.8km Gonneville Intrusion, where Chalice made a significant greenfield PGE-Ni-Cu-Co discovery in March. Results highlight the district-scale Ni-Cu-PGE potential of the ~26km long Julimar Complex. Four rigs continue the resource drill-out at Gonneville, with assay results pending for 50 holes. Commenting on the results, Chalice’s Managing Director, Alex Dorsch, said “We have speculated for some time that the area north of our recent Gonneville discovery is highly prospective. We have now supported that claim with major new, laterally extensive geophysical targets from the first airborne EM survey over the company’s granted tenure, which is a very exciting and important development.”
Established Australian copper and gold producer and explorer, Aeris Resources Limited has entered into further unsecured A$ copper hedges with Macquarie Bank Limited for approximately 5,000 tonnes, at a forward price of A$9,228 per tonne. The hedges will cover the period February to July 2021 in scheduled monthly deliveries of 833 tonnes and equates to approximately 40% of planned production during that period.
Emerging mineral and silica sands developer and explorer, Diatreme Resources Limited announced today the latest update for its Galalar Silica Project in North Queensland, with recent exploration drilling undertaken in late August and subsequent receipt of related sample testing highlighting its potential for further expansion. The drilling program comprised 44 air‐core drill holes for 835m, with some 2,000kg of bulk samples collected from the preliminary mine plan footprint (years one to five). The bulk sample is intended for use in detailed mine planning in anticipation of mining commencement. The program also completed exploration drilling to the north and east of the current resource. Significantly, new holes at the southern section encountered deeper sections of silica sand than anticipated, indicating the potential for an increased resource in this area. DRX concentrated bulk sampling within the year 1 to 5 mine plan at the southern end of the resource, with early exploration re‐drilled to confirm historic drilling and collect samples on 1m intervals to better define the resource
