Dundas Minerals Ltd (ASX:DUN) has received a $220,000 government grant to explore its polymetallic Central target in WA’s Albany-Fraser Orogen.
The West Australian state government will seed the funding, paving the way for exploratory drilling at the nickel-copper-gold camp.
Thanks to the financial package, Dundas can be reimbursed for 50% of the costs tied to rig mobilisation and diamond drilling at Central, capped at $220,000.
The drill bit is already spinning at the precious and base metals target, where the first hole has already intersected 358 metres of massive, semi-massive and disseminated sulphides.
The fine print
Dundas will secure its latest capital injection under round 26 of the state government’s Exploration Incentive Scheme (EIS).
The explorer took part in a competitive application process to secure the grant, which was judged by an expert panel with moderators from the Department of Mines, Industry Regulation and Safety.
The scheme preferentially funds applications with high-quality, technically and economically sound proposals that promote new exploration concepts and technologies.
In the last round, only 38 EIS co-funding grants were offered.
Exploring Central
Dundas started drilling at Central late last month, determined to follow up on its fieldwork findings.
The polymetallic target was initially identified as prospective for mafic-ultramafic associated nickel-cobalt-copper mineralisation thanks to a project-wide gravity survey this time last year.
A detailed gravity survey — conducted over 250-metre-spaced lines — was subsequently conducted across the northeast prospect area over late January and early February.
This survey identified the Central target as having correlated gravity, magnetic and SkyTEM (electro-magnetic) geophysical anomalies, and worthy of more detailed exploration.
In March 2022, an audiomagnetotellurics survey was completed at the Central target.
Two survey lines were completed, and both returned areas of extremely low resistivity (equivalent to high conductivity), where values were less than one ohm-metre.
Fast forward to today, and Dundas is out to prove those results through the drill bit.