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As nickel and palladium prices surge, explorer Caeneus has picked a good time to fire up the rigs at Pardoo
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Caeneus Minerals has got the rigs turning at its historic Pardoo nickel project in the Pilbara, and nickel is not the only surging metal on the explorer’s mind.
It will also investigate the platinum group elements potential of the project as part of a 2000m reverse circulation drill program.
Those metals, especially palladium and rhodium, have seen renewed interest, market tightness and price rises since the start of Russia’s War with Ukraine given Russia’s 40% share of the palladium market.
Caeneus’s (ASX:CAD) drilling program is well timed, dovetailing perfectly with near record nickel prices last week.
It has a head start already, the aim of the program is to target shallow anomalous nickel and PGM mineralisation identified in historical drilling.
Caeneus plans to test down-dip mineralisation in the northern part of Pardoo occurrence and a possible repeat to the north-west.
Drilling and sampling is expected to be done by the end of March.
Pardoo resource in the spotlight
The Pardoo project is well located and sits just 120km north-east of Port Hedland, via the Great Northern Highway.
Caeneus has previously stated the new drilling program will focus on 50m resource infill drilling to update its historical resource to JORC 2012 standard, the benchmark in the Australian resources industry.
And what a time to be doing just that. Prices of the key commodities Caeneus is looking for have surged in recent weeks.
According to Kitco, Nickel was paying US$38,186.67/t on March 13, with copper at US$10,124.50/t, gold at US$1991.10/oz, palladium paying US$2744/oz and platinum at US$1076/oz.
The former four are all near all-time highs.
This article was developed in collaboration with Caeneus Minerals, a Stockhead advertiser at the time of publishing.
This article does not constitute financial product advice. You should consider obtaining independent advice before making any financial decisions.
