Special Report: Strong exploration results and a rejuvenated project portfolio in 2020 sets the scene for a transformative 2021 for Impact Minerals (ASX:IPT) and its shareholders.

Impact holds five fully owned Aussie exploration projects with a focus on gold, silver and platinum group metals, as well as nickel and copper.

During 2020 Impact completed a lot of exploration work at its two flagship projects: the Broken Hill nickel-copper-platinum group metal (PGM) project and the Commonwealth copper-gold project, both in NSW.

Exploration at Broken Hill was reinvigorated during the year in light of the record prices for some of the platinum group metals, palladium and rhodium in particular.

The Broken Hill area is characterised by exceptional grades of all six PGMs: palladium, platinum, rhodium, osmium, ruthenium and iridium, a rare occurrence globally.

The big money is in palladium, which is currently worth ~$2,400/oz.

That’s more than gold (~$US1870/oz) and a lot more than platinum (~$1,130/oz).

In 2020, a major +13,000m drill program delivered breakthrough drill results at every prospect tested.

At the Plat Central prospect, Imapct hit high-grade nickel-copper-PGM mineralisation in a ‘Kambalda-style’ channel — the first coherent zone of mineralisation found in over 40 years of exploration in the area.

Final assays from this area are due shortly.

At the Little Broken Hill Gabbro-Rockwell prospects, the first ever drill holes into the basal unit of an intrusion that has many similarities to the world class Jinchuan mine in China have returned thick intercepts of strongly anomalous PGM +/-copper and nickel mineralisation over a distance of at least 1,500 metres.

The results suggest the basal unit may host a vast repository of these metals.

The remainder of the entire 6.5km extent of the Little Broken Hill Gabbro is untested.

“There’s quite clearly a huge quantity of PGEs in the base of this intrusion,” says Impact managing director Dr Mike Jones.

“Now we need to find out where it has been concentrated.”

Impact is dialling in on the large, high grade ‘feeder zone’, Dr Jones says.

“There is so much smoke here. Finding it is a matter of time,” he says.

A recently reported standout drill intercept at Red Hill of suggests that this prospect may be a ‘feeder zone’ for the Little Broken Hill Gabbro.

The Commonwealth Project is located in the northern part of the Lachlan Fold Belt copper-gold province of NSW, home to major mines like the 50moz Cadia-Ridgeway operations.

Impact has identified five new undrilled targets along trend from the recent Boda-Kaiser porphyry copper-gold discovery by Alkane Resources (ASX:ALK).

One of the prospects, Apsley, included a classic example of a so-called “zinc doughnut” where an outer halo of zinc, lead and manganese surrounds a core of copper, gold and PGMs.

These doughnuts are well understood in porphyry copper-gold exploration.

An extensive Induced Polarisation (IP) ground survey indicates priority drill targets are present in a number of places.

 

New projects

In May the company staked a new major project called Arkun near Chalice Mines’ (ASX:CHN) Julimar PGE-nickel-copper discovery in WA.

On the day of Impact’s announcement about the new project, major miner Anglo American lodged applications for 10,130sqkm of exploration licences surrounding Arkun.

Impact has since added to the Arkun project with the recent purchase of the Beau project which covers an untested magnetic anomaly of similar dimension and magnitude to the Gonneville intrusion that hosts the mineralisation at Julimar.

In October Impact also purchased an 80 per cent interest in the Doonia gold project near Kambalda, home to a significant gold-in-soil anomaly 2.5km long and up to 1km wide.

This is a walk-up drill target with significant size potential, Impact says.

 

2021 is going to be big

This is an elite collection of projects — any of these could be a company maker.

In 2021, Impact has a straightforward plan to drill its highest priority targets.

At Commonwealth, a drill rig has been booked for late February-early March.

At Broken Hill a detailed interpretation of the extensive assay results from the 2020 campaign is well underway and a significant follow up drill programme is being planned.

This work will follow on from the drilling at Apsley, most likely in Q2-Q3.

At Doonia, previous work has defined a walk-up gold drilling target, which could be drilled in Q3 2021.

“We cant wait to get started,” said Dr Jones.

 

 

 

This article was developed in collaboration with Impact 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.

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