Impact cashed up and drilling

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THE DRILL SERGEANT: After raising $5.7 million via a placement and entitlement issue to eligible shareholders, Impact Minerals (ASX: IPT) t has commenced drilling at the Xade copper-nickel-PGE project.

Impact Minerals is earning a 51 per cent stake in the project.

The Xade project covers a poorly explored gabbro intrusion in central Botswana.

 

Location of Impact’s projects in Botswana. Source: Company announcement

 

Impact considers the project to hold potential to host deposits of copper-nickel sulphides and PGE’s.

The planned drilling program is to consist of five holes to depths of up to 700 metres to test five areas of interest the company has generated from the interpretation of detailed airborne magnetic and geochemistry studies.

“The five Xade drill targets were generated from the interpretation of our own detailed airborne magnetic and soil geochemistry surveys and our objective is to use Reverse Circulation drilling to the base of the Karoo Supergroup rocks that overlie the Xade Complex, followed by diamond drilling into the gabbro,” Impact Minerals managing director Dr Mike Jones said.

The drill program will comprise reverse circulation drilling to the base of the Karoo Supergroup that overlies the Xade Complex, followed by diamond core drilling in the gabbro.

The Xade Complex occurs in the North West Botswana Rift, an igneous and sedimentary province of similar age and geological characteristics to the Midcontinent Rift region of North America, and which hosts many major copper-nickel-PGE deposits.

“Results of detailed and systematic geochemical analyses and relogging of about 320 metres of Xade diamond drill core completed by previous explorers confirms our view that the Xade Complex is very prospective for deposits of nickel, copper and PGE’s,” Jones said.

“In addition to the Xade program, we anticipate that drilling will commence in early 2013 at our Red Hills uranium prospect in Botswana and whose mineral assemblage is comparable with some of the world’s highest grade uranium deposits of similar Protoerzoic age.”