Western Mines delivers more broad nickel hits at Mulga Tank

Western Mines Group continues to deliver broad nickel sulphide assays from an infill drill campaign at its Mulga Tank project near Kalgoorlie including a 198m hit at 0.28 per cent nickel from just 108m.

The almost 200m intercept contained several higher-grade sections with a 3m segment going 0.6 per cent nickel and 0.1 per cent copper from 131m including 1m grading an impressive 1.08 per cent nickel from 131m.

Deeper results from the same hole also recorded 11m at 0.4 per cent nickel from 142m and 6m grading 1.01 per cent nickel from 254m, with the entire 198m hit also showing positive results for copper, cobalt, platinum and palladium.

The 17-hole infill campaign was designed to follow-up and infill the higher-grade core of the mineralised system outlined in the company’s recently announced exploration target of between 350 million and 2.2 billion tonnes grading from 0.24 per cent up to 0.35 per cent nickel.

The latest assays show the results of three reverse circulation holes sunk at the Eastern Goldfields operation also returned thick intercepts with 210m grading 0.28 per cent nickel from 87m including 3m at 0.59 per cent nickel from 229m. The third hole delivered 179m going 0.28 per cent nickel from 102m.

Most excitingly, the results confirm another zone of high grade mineralisation in hole MTRC032, returning 6m at 1.01% Ni and 0.32% Cu, validating visual logging of matrix to semi-massive sulphide. A number of these high grade pods/zones are starting to emerge as we increase drilling density and will no doubt become priority follow-up targets for richer massive sulphide deposits.

Results from the first seven holes of the infill program have already been reported, including multiple broad intercepts also stretching out to widths of about 200m with nickel grades peaking at 4.5 per cent in a 1m intercept.

In the past year, Western Mines has proven the existence of significant nickel sulphide mineralisation and an extensive nickel sulphide mineral system within its Mulga Tank ultramafic complex.

In October the company signed a binding agreement with Dynamic Metals to secure a key tenement that significantly expands Mulga Tank. The acquisition took the total area of the project out to 425 square kilometres, covering about 37km strike and the entire Minigwal greenstone belt that management says is under-explored due to the presence of shallow sand cover.

With the reverse-circulation infill campaign now complete and assay results starting to flow, Western Mines has converted the rig to diamond drilling and has moved on to commence a deep diamond hole to test for a sulphide enriched keel in the deepest part of the complex. The hole is being co-funded through a grant of $220,000 from the State Government’s exploration incentive scheme.

With broad intercepts of visible disseminated nickel sulphide mineralisation, grading up to semi-massive in some intersections, the market will be keeping a close eye on what Western Mines can unveil at Mulga Tank as more results from its infill drill campaign come to light.

Is your ASX-listed company doing something interesting? Contact: matt.birney@wanews.com.au