Kuniko’s (ASX:KNI) expedited assays for its first diamond drill hole in its maiden drill programme at Ertelien Nickel Project in Norway have return high-grades for Nickel, Copper and Cobalt.
“These high-grade results continue to demonstrate the developing potential of the Ertelien project. The assays underpin our earlier field observations of massive sulphides in the drill core and align well with those from historical drill core,” CEO, Antony Beckmand, said.
“We look forward to keeping a continued high priority focus on the Ertelien project and our goal of a maiden resource estimate.
“The fundamentals behind a potential nickel project in Norway for European customers is extremely compelling. Strong demand exists from electric vehicle OEMs and battery manufacturers for Class I nickel, which bodes well for a continuing price premium being commanded over other nickel products.
“Additionally, Kuniko’s proximity to Europe and access to renewable hydropower provides a unique opportunity to minimise carbon impacts. With EU battery regulations coming into effect, we can expect the European supply chain will be hunting for and prioritizing ethical, local sources of nickel production with a low carbon footprint.”
Kuniko’s 2023 drilling programmes have had increased emphasis on drill core logging, cutting and sampling at site, enabling improved processes resulting in rapid receipt of assay results.
The returned assays are for the high-priority mineralised interval encountered in KNI_ER001 being the twin hole of the historical ER2006-06B drill hole in which Kuniko confirmed 28.1m @1.34% Nickel, 1.19% Copper, 0.07% Cobalt and 0.14g/t Gold from 280.5 m.
Kuniko is pleased to confirm that the strongly developed mineralized zone observed in the drill core of KNI_ER001 has returned an interval of 25.1m from 281.5m downhole, grading 1.14% Ni, 1.20% Cu, 0.066% Co, and 0.165g/t Au.
These promising results further demonstrate the potential for well-developed zones of nickel, copper and cobalt mineralization at the Ertelien Project. The mineralization intersected by Kuniko compares well to the historic drill hole interval from ER2006-06B in terms of position, thickness and grade.
This provides Increasing confidence in the representivity of historical drilling data and is a step towards using the historic dataset in a modern JORC-compliant maiden resource estimation for the Ertelien Project. As additional assay results are returned for this Phase 1 drilling campaign, they will further test mineralized grades and provide a valuable dataset for geological interpretations around mineralized continuity.
The copper grades demonstrate the suitability of Kuniko’s chosen NQ2-size drilling methodology. The larger sample size of Kuniko’s drill core has helped to counter the apparent nugget effect (i.e. irregular distribution) in the copper and gold data, with the copper grade standard deviation reducing from 2.36 in ER2006-06B down to 1.34 in KNI_ER001. Smaller-scale reductions in standard deviation were also observed in nickel results (0.73 to 0.64) and Co (0.038 to 0.034).
An appreciable gold credit in the copper rich mineralization at Ertelien has also been confirmed, with individual sample grades reaching up to 0.76g/t (1.0m from 290.9m). Whereas Au and Pd seem to correlate with Cu and Ni-Co grades respectively, a 1.45m interval of 0.262g/t Pt seemingly sits directly above a stand-out high-grade zone of 5.05 m @1.81% Ni, 1.27% Cu, 0.10% Co, 0.111g/t Pd and 0.143g/t Au from 285.85m.
As Kuniko continues to advance the Ertelien Nickel Project, further activities are planned with a focus toward defining a maiden JORC resources estimate, including:
▪ downhole geophysics to model continuity of sulphides intersected and define conductive zones between and around mineralization in drill core to support drill targeting and interpreting the geometry of mineralization.
▪ Relogging and assaying historical drillcore.
▪ Additional drilling including twinholes, Infill and stepout drilling.
▪ Updating geological models and resource modelling.
Kuniko has now completed all three of its Q1 ’23 drilling programmes across the Ertelien Nickel Project, Skuterud Cobalt Project and Undal-Nyberget Copper Project.
At Undal-Nyberget Copper Project, eight holes were drilled into the Myrmalm target for a total of 1,554m. Drill core has been dispatched to Kuniko’s central core handling facility and the company looks forward to providing the first visual observations soon.
At the Skuterud Cobalt Project, drilling at the Middagshvile target has been completed with eight holes for a total of 2,444m. Drill core sampling is progressing with samples from KNI_MDV011, KNI_MDV012 and KNI_MDV013 dispatched to the laboratory for assay analysis. The company will make further announcements on assay results as they become available during Q2’23.
For further information please visit: https://kuniko.eu/
