Centaurus Metals’ (ASX:CTM) hunt for high-grade nickel is paying off at its Jaguar project and investors are responding

Shares notched a 25 per cent gain this morning after the company reported it had confirmed drill targets yielding high-grade nickel sulphide of up to 5.27 per cent.

Anything over 3 per cent is considered high grade.

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Sure it’s still early days, and it was the result of re-modelling existing electromagnetic (EM) data, but the news was definitely well received.

Perhaps because nickel sulphide is getting harder to find and more of it is going to be needed to help meet the strong demand arising from the electric vehicle revolution.

Sulphides are much cheaper and easier to turn into battery grade nickel sulphate than nickel laterites and fetch a higher price.

EM surveying at the Brazilian project showed high correlation with nickel sulphide zones intersected at the site previously, and Centaurus will start its own drilling in late October.

Previous drilling results returned hits such as 34m at 3.31 per cent nickel and the site hosts a 315,000-tonne “foreign” (not JORC-compliant) resource.

The first of two conductors extended 150m below the deepest drill hole, indicating mineralisation is open at depth.

The second returned one intercept of 7.9m at 5.27 per cent nickel, with no other holes drilled within 200m of the intercept.

“It’s great to see such positive results from this early stage of work at Jaguar,” managing director Darren Gordon said.

“This gives us confidence in the data we already have to hand and gives us significant momentum as we head towards our first drill program.”

 

In other ASX base metals news:

Coppermoly (ASX:COY) has identified drill targets at its PNG porphyry project. Shareholders learned of the results of a geomagnetic survey today leading to these targets’ definition. Multiple anomalous changeability and conductivity responses were returned on every line in the survey, Centaurus noted. This correlates strongly with known sulphide occurrences. The company will now undertake a follow up exploration program to formally define drilling targets.

Zinc of Ireland (ASX:ZMI) has intersected zinc at its Irish project 200m outside of its current resource. Results include 6m at 11.7 per cent zinc and 10m at 8.2 per cent zinc. Both of these lie within a larger zone of 37m at 5.5 per cent zinc. Follow up drilling is underway.

Castillo Copper (ASX:CCZ) identified potential mineralisation at one of the Zambian assets it recently acquired – specifically the Mkushi project. The company can now mobilise resources quickly to start field work. Previous estimates have put the Munshiwemba deposit, lying within Mkushi, as containing 31.6 million tonnes at 0.62 per cent copper.

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