Ardea Resources Encounters High-Grade Nickel-Cobalt from Highway Metallurgical Drilling
THE DRILL SERGEANT: Ardea Resources (ASX: ARL) already had plenty to tell investors at the 2022 RIU Explorers Conference, but now there’s more after it reported on recent diamond drill core drilling that it says confirms high-grade near surface nickel-cobalt mineralisation at the Highway nickel-cobalt deposit.
The company said the results validate mineralisation models used in generating the Highway resource estimate.
The Highway deposit is a key proposed satellite plant feed source for Ardea’s Kalgoorlie nickel project – Goongarrie hub.
Intercepts at 0.5 per cent nickel and 1 per cent nickel cut-off grades include:
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42 metres at 0.77 per cent nickel and 0.11 per cent cobalt from 2m, including 12m at 1.01 per cent nickel and 0.22 per cent cobalt from 16m and 6m at 1 per cent nickel and 0.04 per cent cobalt from 38m; and
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36m at 0.95 per cent nickel and 0.08 per cent cobalt from 2m, including 24m at 1.11 per cent nickel and 0.1 per cent cobalt from 4m.
“The core drilling at Highway was the first field test of the KNP low-carbon flowsheet model,” Ardea Resources managing director Andrew Penkethman said in the company’s ASX announcement.
“It was important for confirming the expectation that high-magnesium mineralisation is suitable as an Atmospheric Leach (AL) feed and uniformly underlies the premium goethite High Pressure Acid Leach (HPAL) feed.
“The 2021 diamond drilling (DD) program supports Ardea’s modelling that Highway is particularly endowed with AL material.
“AL material is especially important to the low-carbon flowsheet as this helps enable the on-site acid plant to be expanded to generate excess steam which is used for off-grid power generation.
“The Highway DD program tested well below the depth of historic RC drilling.
“In terms of Mineralised Neutraliser, from our detailed core logging, the neutraliser will be an extensive sheet below the AL feed at the base of conventional open pits.
“It appears to be of a cave-fill mineralisation style within saprock.
“In a production situation, this material would best be defined by grade control drilling from the base of pit floor, and mined as “goodbye cuts”.
“With the Highway geological model now confirmed, we eagerly await the results of the ALS benchscale metallurgy, testing the Highway flowsheet model.
“These results will feed into ongoing DFS work flows and continue to enhance the KNP Goongarrie Hub as a globally significant source of sustainable and ethical minerals to fuel the battery revolution.”
TO READ THE FULL ANNOUNCEMENT: CLICK HERE
Email: ardea@ardearesources.com.au
Web: www.ardearesources.com.au
