Chalice leverages Julimar discovery knowledge to farm into new nickel-copper-PGE project

Chalice Gold Mines (ASX: CHN) has taken an option to earn up to a 70% stake in the South West nickel-copper project which has a “Julimar lookalike” target, a reference to the company’s headline-making discovery in March.

In a deal with Venture Minerals (ASX: VMS), Chalice will farm into this new project, which lies near the highly prospective western margin of the Yilgarn Craton in Western Australia and has had limited historical exploration.

Chalice said this is a significant new opportunity in the southwest region of the state with the potential for nickel-copper-platinum group element (PGE) sulphide discoveries.

Chalice’s share price soared in March when the company announced it had struck a massive sulphide zone with its first ever drill hole at the geographically large Julimar project, located 70km from Perth.

The intersection was hit at 48m below ground and returned 19m at 2.59% nickel, 1.04% copper, 8.37grams per tonne palladium and 1.11g/t platinum.

A Julimar lookalike project

Under this latest option and earn-in agreement, Chalice can move to 51% of Venture’s ground by spending $1.2 million over two years, including a minimum of $300,000 in the first year. The stake can move to 70% with an additional $2.5 million spent over the following two years.

The Venture project lies south of Perth and is located between Bridgetown and Manjimup.

The company said the Venture Minerals ground includes a “Julimar lookalike” target with a 20km-long interpreted complex with a strong magnetic signature and a massive sulphide occurrence.

Chalice now in “unrivalled position”

Chalice is planning an initial low-cost geochemical and geophysical program, leveraging off knowledge gained from the 2,000sq km Julimar discovery.

The company said with Julimar and its 1,000sq km Barrabarra project, it holds an “unrivalled position” in the new West Yilgarn nickel-copper-PGE province.

Chalice managing director Alex Dorsch said the Thor target within the new South West plan looks remarkably similar to Julimar in terms of its geophysical signature, scale and geology. This provides an “exciting new discovery opportunity”.

“Having uncovered the new West Yilgarn province in Western Australia, Chalice is in the unrivalled position of being able to leverage its proprietary knowledge to make further discoveries,” he said.

New mineralised zone found at Julimar

Earlier this month, Chalice reported the discovery of a new style of mineralisation at Julimar with PGE, nickel and copper being found below the original discovery.

It included an intersection over 23.9m returning 1.7g/t palladium, 0.4g/t platinum, 0.5g/t gold, 0.1% nickel, 0.7% copper and 0.02% cobalt.

The mineralisation was hit at 314.9m below surface and continued to the end of the hole.