High-Grade Hit Located Outside Current Resource
Centaurus Metals (ASX:CTM) has drilled into an exceptional massive and semi-massive nickel sulphide intersection in its ongoing resource step-out programme at the Jaguar Central Deposit, part of its 100%-owned Jaguar Nickel Sulphide Projectin the Carajás Mineral Province of northern Brazil.
Centaurus’ Managing Director, Darren Gordon, said the intercept in diamond hole JAG-DD-20-104 was the most impressive zone of massive sulphide mineralisation seen by the company’s geologists at the project to date, including all of the 55,000m of diamond core drilled historically by Vale.
“This is an exciting development for our team and we anticipate based on our rapidly growing knowledge of the deposit that the intersection in JAG-DD-20-104 – which is outside of the current Mineral Resource limits – should deliver the best result we have received from the entire Jaguar Project to date once the assays are returned.
“Even after drilling more than 75,000 metres and defining a globally significant Mineral Resource of over 500,000 tonnes of contained nickel, to be intersecting broad 30m intervals of semi-massive and massive high tenor nickel sulphides like this is very exciting and reflects the remarkable growth potential and upside the Jaguar Project still has to offer as we continue to step out and drill deeper holes across the project area,” he added.
“Our geologists now have good control on a +500m long high-grade ore shoot at Jaguar Central that is up to 70m wide. The shoot starts at surface and plunges shallowly to the east, consistently delivering thick, high-grade intersections, with previous results including 33.7m at 2.23% Ni and 31.4m at 2.47% Ni.
“This step-out hole demonstrates the significant opportunity for thick high-grade mineralisation to continue at depth at Jaguar Central to either drive down the depth of any future open pit or facilitate a quality start-up option for any future underground operation, and has further enhanced our growing understanding of the potential economics of the Jaguar Central Deposit.
“We are cutting and processing the core immediately and will put a rush on the samples to make sure they are available for the JORC Mineral Resource update set for January 2021. In-fill and step-out drilling at Jaguar South is also going very well and we expect to have the next round of results from there in the coming weeks.”
Diamond drill hole JAG-DD-20-104 was drilled as a step-out hole in the eastern portion of the Jaguar Central Deposit targeting the down-dip extent of the previously reported high-grade, flat-lying ore shoot which has now been identified across nine drill sections and more than 500m of strike. The mineralised shoot is up to 70m wide and over 100m deep on some sections.
Previously reported drill hole JAG-DD-20-070, which returned an interval of 44.85m at 1.36% Ni, including a high- grade interval of 10.15m at 2.22% Ni is located 50m up-dip on the same section as JAG-DD-20-104.
“Based on visual inspection by the company’s experienced geological team, it is clear that there are significantly more sulphides in the +30m intersection in drill hole JAG-DD-20-104 than in the intersection in JAG-DD-20-070,” Mr Gordon said.
“With our growing knowledge of the nickel sulphide assemblage at the Project, we expect that assays will show hole 104 to be one of the best holes drilled into the Project to date and will also demonstrate that, even after completing over 75,000m of diamond core drilling into the Project, new wide high-grade zones of mineralisation are still to be found as we undertake more step-out drilling.”
