Chalice Mining has revealed a significant resource upgrade of its Gonneville deposit.
Located approximately 70km north-east of Perth, the Gonneville deposit was first discovered in March 2020 in an Australian-first.
At the time, the discovery contained 10 million ounces of palladium, platinum and gold – collectively called 3E, one of six PGEs.
Gonneville now boasts an open-pit and underground mineral resource of 560 million tonnes (Mt) at 0.88 grams per tonne (g/t) 3E (platinum, palladium and gold), 0.16 per cent nickel, 0.09 per cent copper and 0.015 per cent cobalt.
This amounts to 16 million ounces (Moz) of 3E, 860,000 tonnes of nickel, 520,000 tonnes copper and 83,000 tonnes of cobalt, and approximately 3Mt of nickel equivalent (NiEq) product.
“The approximately 50 per cent increase in the Gonneville resource to 3 million tonnes of nickel equivalent is quite a remarkable achievement for the Chalice team given it is barely three years since the discovery of the Julimar complex,” Chalice managing director and chief executive officer Alex Dorsch said.
“Gonneville is now the second-largest undeveloped nickel sulphide resource in Australia.
“The latest numbers continue to demonstrate the world-class endowment, scale and quality of the Gonneville deposit, while also highlighting a compelling picture of upside along the remaining ~28km strike length of the Julimar intrusive complex.
“Apart from further increasing the contained metal, this resource update has also delivered a significant increase in the higher-confidence indicated resource component – which now represents ~60 per cent of the open-pit resource.
“Importantly, 95 per cent of the resource above a depth of 200m is now classified as indicated, which represents a major de-risking step for the project.
“Because of the sheer size and quality of the resource and the significant level of inbound inquiries we have received from a range of downstream, trading and end-user parties, the board has decided to commence a formal strategic partnering process for the Julimar project.
“This process will consider a broad range of potential transactions with the aim of maximising shareholder value and will continue in parallel with the ongoing scoping study.”