St George Mining Ltd (ASX:SGQ) will this week start a drilling program targeting nickel-copper at the Mt Alexander project in the north-eastern Goldfields of Western Australia.
The program involves 20 diamond and reverse circulation drill holes for 2,510 metres.
Most of the planned holes are at Stricklands prospect where a drill hole completed late last year, MAD71, returned the best intersection to date at the Mt Alexander project.
Shares were up 7% to $0.225 in early trade.
BIG PICTURE: St George poised to establish resource at Mt Alexander high-grade nickel-copper project
John Prineas, executive chairman, said: “Drilling in 2017 at Mt Alexander intersected thick massive nickel-copper sulphides at each of the Stricklands, Investigators and Cathedrals prospects.
“We are excited to be commencing our 2018 drill program at Mt Alexander to follow-up on last year’s success.
“At Stricklands, nine drill holes were completed last year to follow-up the outstanding intersection in MAD71 and of those seven drill holes intersected nickel-copper sulphide mineralisation.
“The high strike rate provides confidence that further drilling at Stricklands will continue to identify mineralised ultramafic.”
WATCH NOW: BREAKING...Exciting times for St George Mining
Recent heavy rain in the north-eastern Goldfields created adverse ground conditions and prevented the drill rig and support vehicles from accessing the site.
Conditions have improved and the drill rig is scheduled to arrive on site later this week.
Stricklands is within the Cathedrals Belt where recurrent high-grade nickel-copper-cobalt-PGE sulphide mineralisation has been intersected over a 4-kilometre strike length.
MAD71 intersected 17.45 metres at 3.01% nickel, 1.31% copper, 0.13% cobalt and 1.68 g/t total PGEs from 37.45 metres.
It included 5.3 metres at 4.39% nickel, 1.45% copper, 0.21% cobalt and 2.09 g/t total PGEs from 39.3 metres, and 2.02 metres at 5.05% nickel, 2.01% copper, 0.21% cobalt and 3.31 g/t total PGEs from 50.6 metres.
Testing for extensions
The planned drilling will continue to test for extensions to the mineralised ultramafic, particularly where it is coincident with the strongest portion of a large SAMSON EM anomaly.
Planned holes are along strike and to the north of MAD71, and test downhole EM (DHEM) conductors and geological targets.
Drilling will also test electromagnetic (EM) anomalies in underexplored areas including the first ever deep drilling of EM targets over 500 metres of strike length at the Investigators prospect.
In addition, one drill hole is planned at the Cathedrals Prospect to test for a depth extension to the mineralised footwall fault position.
Further drilling is planned
St George plans to undertake further drilling at Mt Alexander as drill results are assessed and DHEM surveys on completed drill holes are reviewed.
The Cathedrals, Stricklands and Investigators discoveries are on E29/638, which is held in joint venture with Western Areas Ltd (ASX:WSA).
The Mt Alexander project is near Leonora in the north-eastern Goldfields.
St George is the project manager and Western Areas retains a 25% non-contributing interest until there is a decision to mine.
Two drill holes are also planned on St George’s tenement E29/548 to test two anomalous EM responses co-incident with a magnetic anomaly that could represent prospective ultramafics.
READ: St George Mining to drill deeper after indications of nickel sulphide 500 metres downhole
The company also has the East Laverton and Hawaii projects in the Goldfields region.
Drilling at the Windsor X3 prospect of East Laverton has indicated that a large mineralised system may be identified at depth.