Dundas Minerals to wrap up Kokoda drilling and move to Jumbuck nickel prospect
Dundas Minerals expects to complete its maiden drilling at the Kokoda gold prospect this week.
Junior explorer Dundas Minerals (ASX: DUN) has restarted its maiden drilling program at the Kokoda gold prospect in Western Australia following the Christmas and New Year break.
The recently listed company today said 11 of the planned 15 drill holes have been completed and the campaign is expected to be finalised by the end of this week.
The drill rig will then move to the Jumbuck nickel prospect, located about 8 kilometres to the west of Kokoda also within Dundas’ namesake project.
Here, Dundas will follow up on a historic rotary air blast hole that was drilled to 22 metres deep in 2011 and reported anomalous nickel grading at 0.5% or 5,490 parts per million.
The drilling pre-dates the discovery of the Nova nickel deposit located about 116km northeast of Jumbuck.
Dundas has also re-processed historic electromagnetic survey data partially covering the prospect and has identified several late-time conductive anomalies to the south-west of the historic hole that remain untested.
The company anticipates drilling to commence at Jumbuck this weekend.
Maiden drilling funded by IPO
Dundas listed on the ASX last November after raising $6 million through an oversubscribed initial public offering (IPO).
Funds were allocated to its exploration plans in WA’s Albany-Fraser Orogen with a maiden reverse circulation drilling program kicking off within the company’s first month of trading.
The Dundas project covers 11 tenements spanning 1,106sq km in a district that also hosts AngloGold Ashanti’s (ASX: AGG) and Regis Resources’ (ASX: RRL) Tropicana gold mine and IGO’s (ASX: IGO) Nova nickel operation.
Other prospects
Last month, Dundas also completed an infill gravity survey at the Matilda South nickel-copper prospect, where drilling is being planned for the first half of 2022.
A soil sampling program also began at the North-East prospect before Christmas with about 200 sample locations aiming to uncover nickel, copper or gold mineralisation in the area. This program is expected to wrap up this month ahead of a detailed ground gravity survey.