Reaches Agreements On Drilling And Geoscience In Montana
Group Ten Metals Inc. (TSXV:PGE) (OTCQB:PGEZF) has retained Oretest Drilling and Simcoe Geoscience for 2021 exploration programmes at the company’s flagship Stillwater West platinum group element, nickel, copper, cobalt, and gold project in Montana, USA.
The project is located adjacent to Sibanye-Stillwater’s high-grade palladium-platinum mines.
Group Ten’s 2021 exploration programme targets world-class polymetallic deposits of battery metals, platinum group elements and gold in a famously productive and metal-rich mining district which supports the highest-grade palladium-platinum mines in the world, as well as a smelter and refinery complex, in the USA.
The company’s work to date has demonstrated potential for bulk tonnage Platreef-style deposits of nickel and copper sulphide that host palladium, platinum, rhodium, gold, and cobalt within the lower Stillwater complex, based on known parallels with South Africa’s Bushveld complex.
Highlights
- Oretest Drilling has been retained for a planned 10,000m, multi-rig drill campaign with the primary objective of expanding drill-defined mineralisation at the three most advanced areas, while also testing adjacent priority targets identified in the 2020 Induced Polarisation (IP) survey.
- Results from 2021 drilling are expected to drive expansion of the inaugural mineral resource estimates that are now in development at each of the Chrome Mountain, Camp, and Iron Mountain target areas. Publication of these initial resources is targeted for summer 2021 from mineralisation that starts at or near surface, runs from 1 to 1.5km in strike, and is open for expansion along trend and at depth as demonstrated by IP anomalies.
- Simcoe Geoscience has been retained for a planned 54-line-km Alpha IP survey to expand on the success of the 2020 survey which produced wide, high-level, and coincident chargeability and conductivity anomalies with exceptional continuity across the 9.2 km length and 800m depth of the 3D model.
- Thick intervals of drill-defined nickel and copper sulphide mineralisation with palladium, platinum, rhodium, gold, and cobalt, confirm the presence of significant Platreef-style polymetallic mineralisation in the most advanced target areas, and this mineralisation correlates spatially with the geophysical anomalies identified in the 2020 survey.
- The 2021 IP survey will include extension lines off the east and west ends of the 2020 survey grid with the objective of advancing drill-defined polymetallic Platreef-style mineralisation at the Crescent target area and drill-defined high-grade gold at the Pine target, among other targets. The new survey will also include infill coverage to detail wider-spaced areas within the 2020 survey.
President and CEO, Michael Rowley, said work in 2021 will further include geological mapping and prospecting programs intended to advance earlier-stage targets to drill-ready status across the 32 km long project.
“We are excited to announce contracts and plans for our largest exploration programme yet at Stillwater West,” Mr Rowley said.
“IP geophysics and drilling proved to be a powerful combination last year, driving the successful expansion of known mineralisation into untested adjacent targets and identifying multiple new high-grade magmatic horizons, and we look forward to building on that success at the three most advanced target areas with a view to expanding inaugural resources that are targeted for release this summer.
“We also plan to drill some step-out and exploratory holes at priority targets. Stillwater West continues to rapidly advance towards becoming a world-class source of low-carbon, sulphide-hosted nickel, copper, and cobalt, critical to the electrification movement, as well as key catalytic metals including platinum, palladium and rhodium used in catalytic converters, fuel cells, and the production of green hydrogen. We look forward to further announcements in the near term.”
The Stillwater West PGE-Ni-Cu-Co + Au project positions Group Ten as the second-largest landholder in the Stillwater Complex, adjoining and adjacent to Sibanye-Stillwater’s Stillwater, East Boulder, and Blitz PGE mines in south-central Montana.
The Stillwater Complex is recognised as one of the top regions in the world for PGE-Ni-Cu-Co mineralisation, alongside the Bushveld Complex and Great Dyke in southern Africa, which are similar layered intrusions.
