“Given the considerable scale of the project, Chalice is considering securing a strategic minority joint venture partner (or partners) with the technical expertise, market familiarity and financial strength to assist in developing a potential mine at Gonneville,” the company said.
“Several large international trading houses, downstream battery and auto manufacturers have expressed interest to date, with the recent Inflation Reduction Act bill in the United States resulting in a significant increase in inbound interest in Julimar’s large nickel sulphide endowment.”
The company said discussions with potential partners were preliminary and it was focused on delivering the Gonneville scoping study before the end of the year.
Gonneville has a resource of 350 million tonnes at 0.96 grams per tonne palladium, platinum and gold (3E), 0.16% nickel, 0.1% copper and 0.015% cobalt, or 0.58% nickel equivalent or 1.8gpt palladium equivalent.
Contained metal stands at 11Moz of 3E, 560,000 tonnes of nickel, 360,000t of copper and 54,000t of cobalt, or 2Mt of nickel equivalent and 20Moz of palladium equivalent.
The discovery, made in early 2020, is considered world-class and therefore would be of interest to major mining companies.
The resource remains open along strike and at depth.
Today the company announced drilling had confirmed the interpreted extension of the Gonneville Intrusion, based on a recent 2D seismic survey.
Drilling hit several zones of sulphide mineralisation in a 900m-deep hole, interpreted to be continuations of the high-grade G zones about 850m down-plunge of the resource.
Several strong off-hole electromagnetic targets of up to 10,000 siemens were detected.
The northern extension of the Gonneville Intrusion (and Julimar Complex) is confirmed to be offset about 650m west-north-west by a fault, consistent with the seismic interpretation.
The company has hit several zones of sulphide mineralisation up to 1.2km north of the resource, all of which remain open.
Chalice said the offset explained the disappointing results at the Hartog target to date and indicated that the Gonneville resource was trending beneath the Julimar State Forest at depth.
The company is awaiting approvals to drill about 1.6km north of the resource in the forest.
Meanwhile, extensional drilling at Gonneville has extended the mineralised zones up to 600m beyond the resource.
New results included 70m at 2.4gpt 3E, 0.2% nickel, 0.2% copper and 0.02% cobalt (1.2% nickel equivalent) from 638m, including 16.9m at 7.9gpt 3E, 0.4% nickel, 0.6% copper and 0.03% cobalt (3.5% NiEq); 14m at 5.8gpt 3E, 0.2% nickel, 0.2% copper and 0.01% cobalt (2.2% NiEq) from 689m.
Chalice said its drilling to date supported the interpretation of the Gonneville Intrusion (and Julimar mafic-ultramafic complex) as having a rare chonolith-like geometry, which is similar to other major ultramafic-mafic orthomagmatic systems worldwide, including Norilsk-Talnakh, Kabanga and Jinchuan.
Regionally, consistent PGE-nickel-copper-cobalt sulphide mineralisation was intersected in all 10 holes assayed to date into the Hooley-Dampier prospects, located 5-10km north of the Gonneville resource.
Three rigs are continuing to test the trend and seismic/EM will be used to vector towards high-grade zones.
