Prices were up 3.1% to US$2567/oz overnight after days of solid gains.
Never has the importance of having a diversity of metals supply been so stark.
It is a point not lost on Chalice Mining (ASX:CHN) boss Alex Dorsch, who it seems has picked the right time to be drilling out the palladium-rich Gonneville deposit near Perth.
“The polymetallic PGE-nickel-copper-cobalt Resource defined at Julimar is already very significant on a global scale, however recent troubling developments in Ukraine have highlighted the strategic importance of this critical minerals deposit and the new West Yilgarn mineral province to support the decarbonisation of the global economy and to de-risk critical supply chains,” he said today.
Dorsch was talking about the release of new results from drilling at Gonneville.
The Julimar discovery was unveiled as one of the world’s largest nickel sulphide deposits of the last 20 years back in November, as well as the largest PGE (platinum group elements) find in Australian resources history.
Given that was on the back of less than two years of admittedly well funded drilling, you’d be silly to think the initial Gonneville resource, comprising just 7% of the 26km long Julimar intrusion, is where it ends.
New results from extensional drilling have identified high grade sulphide intersections of more than 0.6%NiEq suphides up to 400m beyond the limit of the Gonneville pit shell, highlighting its underground potential.
They included strikes like 16m at 2.9g/t palladium, 0.6g/t platinum, 0.4g/t gold along with nickel, copper and cobalt values, and a high grade stirke of 3.7m at 7.3g/t Pd, 1.2g/t Pt, 0.7g/t Au, 0.6% Ni, 1% Cu and 0.04% cobalt (a 4.5% NiEq grade).
Infill drilling into the shallow inferred resource at Gonneville down to around 250m has also occurred, with Chalice aiming to upgrade it to a higher confidence category as part of its next resource update due in May.
