Fathom Nickel Inc (CSE:FNI, OTCQB:FNICF) announced that its seven-hole drill program completed in September at its Gochager Lake deposit within the Gochager Lake project in Saskatchewan has returned multiple intercepts of nickel ranging from 1% to 3.25%.
The company said that continuous nickel-copper-cobalt mineralization occurs in broad halos which host steeply orientated chutes of very conductive, semi-massive sulphide mineralization.
It added that drilling has confirmed that zones with greater than 1% nickel are associated with zones of high conductivity as defined by borehole electromagnetic (BHEM) surveys.
"The September drill program was successful in providing insight into the steep orientation of the mineralization we intersected in GL23003 and, importantly, its orientation along strike,” Fathom Nickel CEO and vice president of exploration Ian Fraser said in a statement.
He said that the company was also very excited and encouraged by the presence of the massive sulphide vein in drillhole GL23008, which returned 3.25% nickel over 0.64 metres.
“Clearly, massive sulphides equate to high-grade nickel - 3.25% in this case - and the BHEM tells us there is very strong conductivity off-hole of GL23008. BHEM is also telling us we didn't drill deep enough in GL23008 and several other drillholes, as conductivity continues to increase to the end of the drillholes,” he said.
Fathom Nickel said nickel tenor calculations suggest Gochager Lake’s mineralization tenor is 3.5% which is comparable to nickel tenors within the Subdury Nickel Camp.
The company will spend the rest of this year continuing to interpret drilling and geophysical data sets it collected during 2023, it said.
It aims to drill 3,000 to 5,000 metres in the first quarter of 2024 to further delineate the broad mineralized halos.
“We have made tremendous strides with only nine drillholes drilled at the Gochager Lake project in 2023,” Fraser commented.
“We look forward to continuing this success as we prepare to execute the winter 2024 drill program which we are planning to initiate in 1Q 2024."
Shares of the company rose on the news, adding 15.6% to C$0.19 in premarket trade on Tuesday.
Fathom Nickel is an exploration company that is targeting magmatic nickel sulphide discoveries to support the rapidly growing electric vehicle (EV) market.
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