Pioneer continues exploration streak with wide, high grade cobalt at Golden Ridge
Weathered ultramafic rocks from Pioneer Resources’ Golden Ridge Cobalt Project.
Pioneer Resources’ (ASX: PIO) exploration luck has continued after striking wide, high-grade cobalt at its 100%-owned Golden Ridge project near Kalgoorlie in Western Australia, a day after announcing it had pulled visible spodumene from its first drill hole at its Canada-based Mavis Lake lithium project.
Results from the December 2017 drilling campaign have revealed a wide shallow intersection at the Rocket prospect of 31m grading 0.15% cobalt and 0.37% nickel, including a 3m interval containing 0.45% cobalt.
Another two notable intersections at Rocket were 6m at 0.57% cobalt and 0.52% nickel from 22m, and 1m at 1.60% cobalt.
Meanwhile, the Leo’s Dam prospect was also shallow and gave up 22m grading 0.18% cobalt and 0.53% nickel, and 19m grading 0.22% cobalt and 0.23% nickel.
Anomaly 13 and Anomaly 14 also returned decent widths including 16m at 0.17% cobalt and 0.42% nickel, and 17m at 0.11% cobalt and 0.17% nickel, respectively.
The results are from 31 reverse circulation holes, with the company stating more than half had intersected “significant” cobalt mineralisation.
During 2018, Pioneer plans to undertake confirmation drilling, as well as infill resource definition drilling at confirmed prospects, as well as bulk sampling for metallurgical testing.
Golden Ridge is situated 30km from Kalgoorlie and encompasses 115 square kilometres of ground believed prospective for cobalt and nickel sulphide.
Due to its proximity to Kalgoorlie, Golden Ridge has access to existing infrastructure and resources.
Today’s news follows the company’s announcement it had identified visible spodumene in the first drill hole at its Mavis Lake lithium project in Ontario, Canada.
Pioneer is earning an 80% stake in Mavis Lake and is currently testing extensions to identified spodumene bearing pegmatites at the project.
Mavis Lake is 2,642 hectares, and similar to Golden Ridge, is near to a town and accessible infrastructure.
In addition to Golden Ridge and Mavis Lake, Pioneer also owns a suite of projects prospective for lithium, caesium, tantalum, cobalt, nickel and gold in Western Australia and the Raleigh lithium project near Mavis Lake in Canada.
Shares in Pioneer had lifted more than 10% to A$0.031 by mid-day.