Venture, Chalice add to target inventory at their Julimar lookalike

Venture and Julimar owner Chalice now has a bevy of targets lined up for drilling at the South West nickel-copper-PGE project after identifying another seven bedrock conductors.

All seven of the recently defined targets are similar strength conductors to those that yielded wide and significant palladium intervals during the early drilling phase of the Julimar nickel-copper-PGE discovery.

The joint venture now has 11 potential targets within the Thor Target, a 20km long Julimar lookalike magnetic anomaly.

Venture Minerals (ASX:VMS) notes that work such as soil geochemistry is now underway by Chalice Mining’s (ASX:CHN) exploration team to prioritise the targets for drill testing in the coming months.

Chalice runneth over

Chalice has to spend a further $1.2m by 29 July 2022 to earn a 51% stake in the South West project and a further $2.5m to increase its interest to 70%.

“Venture’s JV partner Chalice Mining has now delivered several new EM anomalies within the Thor “Julimar lookalike” target from the first stage of the JV earn-in to the company’s South West project,” managing director Andrew Radonjic said.

“To have a partner that has “one of the largest greenfield Ni-Cu-PGE sulphide discoveries in recent history” will be of huge benefit in this very important second stage of the JV with Chalice, including a maiden drill program at Thor.

“Venture, through its South West JV with Chalice, is well placed for a new Ni-Cu-PGE discovery and the associated excellent exposure to nickel, which is now at 10-year highs, and palladium with its widespread applications in a green hydrogen economy.”

New anomalies add to Thor prospectivity

The seven new anomalies at Thor, which is defined by Chalice as being a Julimar lookalike, adds to its prospectivity.

One of the anomalies is a potential priority drill target given that it coincides with a previously intersected massive sulphide zone of 2.4m grading 0.5% copper, 0.05% nickel, 0.04% cobalt and anomalous gold and palladium (TOR05).

Another is one of the higher conductance plates and is well located 200 metres down-dip of the 17m zone of disseminated, semi-massive and massive sulphides intersected in TOR03.

South West project

The South West project, located about 240km south of Perth, hosts the Thor and Odin prospects that both contain areas of nickel-copper-PGE prospectivity.

An airborne EM survey in 2018 identified 13 targets in the southern 6.5 km of the Thor magnetic anomaly with maiden drilling returning massive sulphides along with anomalous gold and palladium.

Maiden drilling at Odin, a highly prospective mafic-ultramafic unit that extends over 10 strike kilometres, also intersected nickel and copper sulphides.

This article was developed in collaboration with Venture 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.