Infill drilling at the Baker target within Lunnon Metals’ (ASX: LM8) Kambalda nickel project has continued to return high-grade and wide nickel intervals.
Lunnon is carrying out 8,000m of reverse circulation and 3,000m of diamond drilling to increase confidence and expand the current resource of 15,800 tonnes of nickel metal grading 2.8%.
The company has now received assays from the first infill line with notable results of 5m at 6.99% nickel, 0.64% copper, 0.13% cobalt, 0.89 grams per tonne palladium, and 1.66g/t platinum; 7m at 4.53% nickel, 0.62% copper, 0.10% cobalt, 0.83g/t palladium and 0.27g/t platinum; and 3m at 6.71% nickel, 0.45% copper, 0.11% cobalt, 0.86g/t palladium and 0.22g/t platinum.
Lunnon managing director Ed Ainscough said Baker continued to “surprise and impress” the company, with assays revealing widths and grades that were an improvement on the current resource.
“The close reconciliation with the current model was expected, but it is pleasing to record more impressive widths and grades on this first section line.”
“The observation of repeated intercepts and nickel mineralisation close to the komatiite basal contact is particularly interesting and bodes well for the continued growth of Baker – all in all, an excellent start to the infill and extensional program,” he added.
Lunnon expects to be reporting assays regularly from this point, with metallurgical and geotechnical work ongoing.
Kambalda nickel project
Baker is a priority deposit within the wider Kambalda project, which has a global resource of 2.2Mt at 2.9% nickel for 64,300t of contained metal.
Since Lunnon’s IPO in June last year, contained nickel resources have grown 65%.
The project is located in Western Australia’s world-renowned nickel district near the town of Kambalda.
Since it was discovered in the mid-1960s, the district has produced more than 1.4Mt of nickel metal and 15Moz of gold.
Lunnon’s project comprises 19 contiguous mining leases covering approximately 23 square kilometres and is largely surrounded by St Ives’s ground.
