Chalice Mining has commenced drilling at its Hartog prospect within the Julimar nickel-copper-platinum group elements (PGE) project in Western Australia.
It comes after the company received environmental approval from the state government for initial low-impact drilling at the Hartog and Baudin targets earlier this month.
After its history-defining discovery at the Gonneville prospect, Chalice has been champing at the bit to explore the fancied Hartog target, which had received stronger responses in prior airborne electromagnetic (AEM) surveys than Gonneville.
Chalice has planned approximately 70 drill sites across 10 kilometres of strike length as part of the foundational drilling at Hartog.
“The initial drill locations at Hartog have been selected based on their ease of access and will be drilled using track-mounted diamond drill rigs that will operate wholly within the footprint of the existing tracks, with no disturbance or clearing of vegetation required,” Chalice said in a statement.
“The drill rigs have fully contained above-ground drilling fluids systems, which means that no excavation of drilling sumps is required and all waste will be disposed of outside the forest.”
Chalice has conducted extensive flora and fauna surveys covering an area of approximately 5700 hectares to inform the drilling program.
A key condition of the Stage 2 conservation management plan (CMP) includes monitoring by qualified fauna observers throughout the program to ensure there is no direct impact to wildlife.
A maximum operational footprint of 4.4 hectares across the approximately 2000-hectare Hartog-Baudin target area is allowed under the CMP.
In November 2021, Chalice unearthed the largest discovery of PGE in Australian history at Gonneville, containing 10 million ounces of palladium, platinum and gold – collectively called 3E, one of seven PGEs.
Chalice also confirmed the largest nickel sulphide discovery in more than 20 years as part of a 330-million-tonne mineral resource boasting 530,000 tonnes of nickel, 330,000 tonnes of copper and 53,000 tonnes of cobalt.
This marked Chalice’s first discovery from its Julimar project.