Impact Minerals (IPT:ASX) is fired up for a fascinating drill program at Broken Hill that will follow up its discovery of some of the highest grades of platinum ever reported in Australia in Broken Hill.
Drilling will commence within days as Mike Jones, managing director of Impact and new cornerstone shareholder, Andrew Forrest's Squadron Resources attempt to unlock the nickel-copper-platinum riches.
In fact, courtesy of the discovery and the $7.3 million investment Impact will drill all three of its flagship Australian precious and base metal projects.
Government co-funding awards of $353,000 and funding of up to a further $1.9 million from a recently announced 1-for-6 rights issue means that Impact can accelerate its exploration programs and forge ahead over the next year on each of its projects.
Impact’s managing director Dr Mike Jones said “With at least one drill program on all three of our Australian projects in the next 12 months, shareholders can now look forward to the most exciting period in our company’s history as we try to unlock their upside potential.
"The fact that we also have an almost unprecedented amount of $353,000 from Government drilling co-fund initiatives to fund two of our planned programs is an independent testament to the projects’ potential.
"This is an excellent outcome in these difficult times for our industry” he said.
Copper-nickel-platinum project
At the Broken Hill high grade copper-nickel-platinum (PGM) joint venture project a drill program of up to 1,500 metres of diamond drilling will commence within days to follow up Impact’s discovery of a 25 to 30 metre thick near-surface layer of copper-nickel-PGM mineralisation.
This program will in part be funded by a grant of $78,000 towards direct drill costs awarded to Impact in 2015 as part of the New South Wales Government New Frontiers Co-operative Drilling initiative.
Mulga Tank nickel-gold project
This is located 200 kilometres east of Kalgoorlie and exploration has stepped up with the commencement of an airborne magnetic and radiometric survey covering the entire 425 sq km project area. The survey is already 60% complete.
Impact has received an almost unprecedented amount of $275,000 for co-funding of drilling in two awards as part of the Western Australian government’s Exploration Incentive Scheme.
At the Mulga Tank Dunite Prospect Impact discovered high tenor nickel and copper sulphides in its maiden drill program in 2013.
The style of mineralisation and the nature of the rocks are similar to those that host the significant nickel deposits at Perseverance (1 Mt of contained nickel) and Mt Keith (>2 Mt of contained nickel) near Leinster in Western Australia.
The project area occurs in the same geological terrain as the recently discovered Gold Road (ASX:GOR) Gruyere deposit of more than 5 million ounces of gold. The Mulga Tank project has been not well explored for gold and this will also be a focus of the forward program.
Commonwealth high grade gold-silver-zinc-lead-copper project
This is located 100 kilometres north of Orange in New South Wales Impact has defined a maiden Inferred Resource of 720,000 tonnes at 720,000 tonnes at 2.8 g/t gold, 48 g/t silver, 1.5% zinc, 0.6% lead and 0.1% copper including 145,000 tonnes at 4.3 g/t gold, 142 g/t silver, 4.8% zinc, 1.7% lead and 0.2% copper.
The resource, which has similar geological characteristics to the Woodlawn deposit near Canberra (17 Mt at 1.4 g/t gold, 80 g/t silver, 9.9% zinc, 3.8% lead and 1.7% copper), is open along trend and at depth and further resource definition drilling is required.
Further field checking, ground geophysical and geochemical surveys through out the Commonwealth Project area will commence in October.
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