Impact Minerals (ASX:IPT) is commencing an anticipated drill campaign near Broken Hill where it made Australia’s highest ever platinum group metal (PGM) grade discovery at Red Hill.
All eyes will be on the deeper diamond drilling of 1,500 metres in total that will test seven targets which covers about one square kilometre at Red Hill prospect.
This is where Impact discovered a 25 to 30 metre thick near-surface layer of copper-nickel-PGM mineralisation.
In July, Mike Jones, managing director of Impact negotiated funding from Andrew Forrest's Squadron Resources Pty Ltd in tranches of up to $7.3 million.
Mineralisation at Red Hill occurs mostly in two zones of high grade drill intercepts.
The upper zone returned intercepts including 9.5 metres at 4.7 g/t 3PGM, 1.5% copper and 0.8% nickel.
While the lower zone included an intercept of 9.9 metres at 6.7 g/t 3PGM, 1.4% copper and 0.3% nickel including 4.2 metres at 11.8 g/t 7PGM, 2.6% copper and 0.5% nickel.
Of interest, these are the first significant drill intercepts of PGM, nickel and copper within Impact’s project area away from the high grade drill intercept of 2 metres at 6.1% nickel, 4.5% copper, 10.9 g/t platinum and 23.6 g/t palladium in fresh sulphide.
This was discovered some years ago by previous explorers at the Platinum Springs prospect located about 15 kilometres to the north east.
CRA Exploration completed two diamond drill holes under Red Hill in 1969 but drilled holes that missed the prize.
Poorly explored area in the past
Red Hill has been under-explored in the past within Impact’s project area that occur in mafic to ultramafic rocks that host high grade copper-nickel-PGM in a wide arc that covers about 40 kilometres of strike to the south east of Broken Hill.
There could ultimately be many strike kilometres of the same ultramafic host rock that contain high grade nickel-copper-PGM rock chip assays similar to those at Platinum Springs and Red Hill.
These have never been drilled.
In addition, and where assayed, the rock chip samples and drill results commonly contain up to several grams per tonne combined of the rare platinum group metals (PGM) osmium, iridium, rhodium and ruthenium, as well as the more common platinum and palladium.
Most of the rock chip samples, which have been variably assayed for the different PGMs, come from the Moorkai Intrusive Complex in the northern part of the project area where the host ultramafic unit can be traced for 9 kilometres along trend.
All told, is reason enough Impact has the belief that there is potential for a significant discovery to be made near Broken Hill.
Osmium and iridium are used in many specialist hard-wearing metal alloys as well as the electronics industry. Rhodium and ruthenium are mostly used together with platinum and palladium for catalytic converters.
Project ownership
Impact has earned 87% of the rights to nickel, platinum and any other metals, occurring in, emanating from, or which are otherwise associated with, mafic or ultramafic complexes at the Broken Hill Joint Venture Project.
Golden Cross Resources (ASX:GCR) has elected not to contribute to the upcoming drill programme and accordingly Impact’s interest in the mineral rights will increase to about 90%.
Silver City Minerals (ASX:SCI) has the joint venture rights to base metal, silver and gold mineralisation associated with Broken Hill style mineralisation.
Of interest, Squadron Resources Pty Limited also has the right to invest $1 million for a 19.9% interest in the project under the terms of its investment into Impact.
Analysis
Drilling will start next week in a follow up to the earlier stunning PGM grades at Red Hill, which delivered one of Australia's highest ever platinum group metal discoveries.
Since then Impact has attracted Andrew Forrest as a cornerstone investor.
While first assays will be highly anticipated, Impact has potentially three company making projects.
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