Western Australian focussed resources company Artemis Resources Limited (ASX: ARV), has confirmed a new, shallow JORC 2012 resource estimate within the company’s 100% owned Radio Hill Nickel Mine in the West Pilbara region of Western Australia.
The Indicated JORC resource confirmed by Artemis Resources consists of 1.15 million tonnes at 0.52 per cent Nickel, 0.73 per cent Copper and 277 parts per million Cobalt for 5,980 tonnes contained Nickel, 8,395 tonnes contained Copper and 318 tonnes contained Cobalt.
The Radio Hill Nickel Mine is in the West Pilbara region of Western Australia, ≈35 km by road south of the established mining city of Karratha. Access is via the Karratha – Tom Price sealed road and then mine access tracks. Radio Hill is on a fully approved mining lease and contains Artemis’ 100% owned Radio Hill Processing Plant and the historic Radio Hill underground mine. The underground mine ore was processed through Radio Hill prior to the plant being placed into care and maintenance in September 2008 due to low commodity prices.
Drilling by previous operators of Radio Hill comprised 1,052 drill holes including open hole percussion, RAB, RC, underground sludge and diamond drilling for a total of approximately 89,885 metres.
In 2018 Artemis drilled the shallow mineralisation up-dip from the Radio Hill underground workings on a regular grid. This included another 80 Reverse Circulation drill holes and seven diamond drill holes for an 6,779.5 metres. The purpose of this drilling was to verify previous drilling by past owners of the asset, , which was not used as part the resource calculation, and increase the drill data available in the upper levels of the mineralisation.
This drilling, sampling and assaying was verified by an independent consultant to ensure it complied with the JORC Code (2012) for reporting exploration results and Mineral Resources. The consultant used the Artemis drilling only to model the shallow resources, ignoring the earlier drilling as it could not be verified as conforming to the JORC Code (2012).
Commenting on the delineation of the new resource at Radio Hill, Artemis Resources Executive Director, Mr Ed Mead, said, “This up-dip extension to the historic Radio Hill underground represents a new, shallow nickel – copper resource approximately 400m from the Radio Hill plant.
“Further resource development work is required to determine the optimum means to monetise the project and this work will be reviewed in 2019.”
Artemis has stated that it believes the shallow, upper portion of Radio Hill could represent an opportunistic mining target within close proximity to the Radio Hill infrastructure. Given additional resource development work and favourable commodity prices this target would be reassessed for future processing.
