Centaurus Metals’ (ASX: CTM) latest step-out and deeper drilling at key deposits has confirmed the potential for further significant resource growth at its 100%-owned Jaguar Nickel Sulphide Project in the Carajás Mineral Province of northern Brazil.
The company is confident the latest results will underpin further growth in the Mineral Resource while also continuing to de-risk the Project with positive in-fill drilling results.
Managing Director, Darren Gordon, said that the outstanding results received from resource growth and development drilling were consistent with the company’s two-pronged strategy of continuing to grow and upgrade the Resource in parallel with key de-risking steps associated with in-fill drilling and the completion of the ongoing Definitive Feasibility.
“In November 2022 we updated our MRE to 108.0Mt @0.87% Ni for 938,500t of contained nickel, confirming Jaguar as one of the largest undeveloped nickel sulphide deposits globally. That Resource is already in the hands of the mining engineers and will underpin the DFS that will focus on a long-life project delivering +20,000tpa of nickel- in-sulphate for the rapidly growing global battery-EV industry,” he said.
“The development drilling that we are progressing continues to build confidence in the Resource in and around these open pits and will also go a long way to continuing to de-risk the project beyond the DFS. At the same time, we will continue to grow the project in a systematic manner through targeted step-out and extensional drilling that is expected to push the resource beyond 1 million tonnes of contained nickel metal in 2023.
“Importantly, the recent deep drilling results from the Jaguar South and Onca Preta Deposits are well below the MRE limits and previous Scoping Study stope optimizations.
“Jaguar is shaping up as a Tier-1 supplier of nickel-in-sulphide and it is clear to us that the demand for nickel sulphate is growing rapidly as auto-makers increasingly focus on where they are going to source their nickel from and what the emissions footprint looks like for the nickel that is essential to their accelerating EV roll-out.”
Resource Growth – Step-out Drilling
The diamond rigs at Jaguar are now targeting resource growth by undertaking both step-out drilling and extensional drilling across all deposits, but with an initial focus on the high-grade Onça Preta and Jaguar South Deposits. These rigs will also continue to undertake important drilling for geotechnical, metallurgical and structural interpretation purposes.
The company is in the process of optimizing its contractor drill fleet, removing underperforming rigs and reducing the total number of rigs on site to six diamond rigs and one Reverse Circulation (RC) rig.
The May 2021 Jaguar Scoping Study demonstrated that both the Jaguar South and Onça Preta Deposits can sustain quality underground operations with the study stope optimizations bottoming out on the base of the January 2021 MRE.
The continual extension of the high-grade mineralization, as demonstrated by recent drill results, both down-dip and now along strike at both deposits bodes well for continued resource growth and in turn future underground operations.
For further information please visit: https://www.centaurus.com.au/
