Centaurus Metals (ASX: CTM) continues to obtain outstanding results from resource growth and greenfields exploration drilling at its 100%-owned Jaguar Nickel Sulphide Project in the Carajás Mineral Province of northern Brazil which are set to underpin a significant resource upgrade planned for December 2021.
Managing Director, Darren Gordon, said the consistent flow of high-quality drilling results was testament to the scale and quality of the Jaguar Project.
“We are pleased to see that both resource development and extensional drilling along with explorational drilling is delivering for us, putting the Company in a strong position to deliver its second major Mineral Resource upgrade for 2021 next month,” he said.
“The step-out drilling at Onça Preta and the Jaguar Deposits continues to produce further strong results with these deposits remaining open at depth. As we progressively drill the newly-defined DHEM conductor plates we continue to intersect wide zones of semi-massive and massive sulphides with high-grade nickel in most holes.
“The new step-out intersections are located immediately below the Scoping Study stope designs and this suggests that the Resource should be able to be pushed deeper, which in turn should allow the underground mine plan to also be extended as part of the Feasibility Study.
“What is also very exciting is that, in addition to the successful step-out drilling we have been undertaking, first assays from the Tigre Prospect greenfields drilling program have confirmed the quality of the recent near-surface discovery. This means that we should be able to include Tigre in the upcoming resource upgrade which is on target for delivery in December.
“Overall, it is clear that while the existing MRE is already very extensive and is one of the largest undeveloped nickel sulphide deposits globally, we have only just scratched the surface in terms of resource potential at Jaguar.”
Onça Preta
The Onça Preta Deposit currently hosts a resource of 3.7Mt at 1.58% Ni for more than 58kt of contained nickel, part of the Mineral Resource Estimate (MRE)0F for the Jaguar Project that stands at 58.9Mt at 0.96% Ni for 562,600 tonnes of contained nickel.
The nickel grade at Onça Preta is the highest of all the deposits at the Jaguar Project at 1.58% Ni, with the deposit consistently returning thick intersections at over 2.0% Ni and remaining open at depth and along strike. The current base of the planned underground operations at Onça Preta is restricted by the base of the MRE, which in turn reflects the current base of drilling.
JAG-DD-21-190, one of the deepest holes drilled to-date at the Onça Preta Deposit by Centaurus, has intersected 40.8m at 1.22% Ni from 269m (including 14.8m at 2.22% Ni from 295m) and 10.0m at 2.09% Ni from 318m.
Importantly, down-hole electromagnetic (DHEM) survey work at the Onca Preta Deposit continues to identify multiple strong late-time (Ch20+) conductor plates. These sub-vertical plates extend down to 200m below the deepest drilling and have a combined strike extent of over 300m with very high conductivities of 2500-12000S.
At the Jaguar Project, conductor plates with these conductivity levels consistently host semi-massive and massive sulphides.
Recently more semi-massive and massive zones have been intersected extending the mineralisation both down- dip and further along strike to the east of section 476885mE. Zones up to 30m wide of stringer and semi-massive nickel sulphides have been intersected in drill holes JAG-DD-21-2011 and JAG-DD-21-208 on section 476940mE.
This is also very encouraging as it demonstrates that the high-grade nickel mineralisation is open down-dip and along strike to the east and indicates that mineralisation is plunging north-northeast below historical drilling.
Highlights of new assay results from drilling at the Onça Preta Deposit include the following down-hole intervals
Hole JAG-DD-21-190
➢ 40.8m at 1.22% Ni, 0.64% Zn, 0.09% Cu and 0.04% Co from 269.0m, including
o 3.0m at 2.09% Ni, 0.08% Zn, 0.14% Cu and 0.07% Co from 281.0m; and
o 14.8m at 2.22% Ni, 1.33% Zn, 0.18% Cu and 0.06% Co from 295.0m ➢ 10.0m at 2.09% Ni, 1.65% Zn, 0.13% Cu and 0.11% Co from 318.0m, including
o 6.0m at 2.90% Ni, 2.22% Zn, 0.17% Cu and 0.13% Co from 318.0m
Drilling on section 476790mE, 45m to the west of section 476835mE where historical hole JAGU-DH00014 was drilled, has also intersected high-grade nickel sulphides beneath the deepest drilling, with JAG-DD-21-200 and now JAG-DD-21-219 intersecting up to 20m of stringer to semi-massive sulphides.
The JAG-DD-21-219 intersection is the deepest drilled at Onca Preta to date, deeper than historical drill hole JAGU- DH00014, located 50m to the east, which returned 18.0m at 2.19% Ni from 318m and 7.9m at 2.18% Ni from 351m, demonstrating the continuity of mineralisation along strike
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