Auroch Minerals Progresses Saints Nickel Project Drill Program

THE DRILL SERGEANT: Auroch Minerals (ASX: AOU) kept the market up to date on the progress of its maiden drilling program underway at the company’s recently-acquired Saints nickel project near Kalgoorlie in Western Australia.

Auroch Minerals reported that latest diamond drill-hole SNDD005 had intersected 1.6 metres of semi-massive to massive sulphide mineralisation.

The company claim the mineralisation is nickeliferous, with pentlandite (one of the major nickel sulphide ore minerals) observed intergrown with pyrrhotite, along with pyrite and chalcopyrite (a copper sulphide ore mineral).

The interval has been processed and sampled by the Auroch team; however full assays are pending.

Auroch explained that SNDD005 was drilled to confirm the modelled nickel sulphide mineralisation at Saint Patricks.

As the company does not have access to the drill core nor the collars of the majority of the historic drill-holes that intersected the Saint Patricks mineralisation, which were drilled by WMC in the 1990’s, the modern drilling is being undertaken to confirm the position, thickness and grade of the nickel sulphide mineralisation.

“We are very pleased with the progress of our maiden drilling program at the Saints nickel project,” Auroch Minerals managing director Aidan Platel said in the company’s announcement to the Australian Securities Exchange.

“We are halfway through the program and progressing on-schedule and on-budget, and the drilling has been of a high standard.

“The nickeliferous massive sulphides intersected in drill-hole SNDD005 are very interesting and we look forward to receiving the assay results as soon as possible.

“With five holes remaining to drill, all of the assay results still to come and down-hole EM surveys commencing next week, we look forward to receiving a large amount of data over the next two months that will guide the next phase of drilling at the Saints nickel project in early 2020, and will continue to update the market as this information is received.”

Four other drill-holes (SNDD001 – SNDD004) have been drilled outside of the existing resource areas – two drill-holes at the Western Contact and two drill-holes at Saint Patricks, respectively – and were designed to glean information such as DHEM data in positions down-plunge and/or along strike from the known nickel sulphide mineralisation.

All four drill-holes also intersected disseminated to matrix sulphides and thin zones of massive sulphides of varying widths up to 30 centimetres; however, Auroch indicated it is not known if these zones contain economic grades of nickel.

Drill-hole SNDD006 is underway and is designed to further test the modelled nickel sulphide mineralisation at Saint Patricks.

Auroch is expecting a field team from GEM Geophysics (GEM) to be on-site soon to undertake DHEM surveys on all of the drill-holes completed in the current program to-date.

The data from this program will be used to model drill targets for the next phase of drilling to begin in early 2020.

 

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