Dreadnought Resources (ASX: DRE) has commenced RC drilling at the Money Intrusion Ni-Cu-PGE (First Quantum Minerals Earn-in / JV) at the Mangaroon Project, located in the Gascoyne Region of Western Australia.
Drilling (5 holes, ~1,000m) is targeting five conductive bodies interpreted to be sulphide accumulations. Of these, two conductors are located at the Bookathanna North target where the keel of the Money Intrusion is near surface and the other three are located within the High Range target. All five conductors are significantly stronger than those targeted in the 2022 drill program which intersected net-textured to brecciated Ni-Cu-PGE sulphides.
With Rare Earth Resource drilling at Mangaroon coming to a close, we are excited to return to the highly prospective Ni-Cu-PGE targets defined at Bookathanna North and High Range with our partners First Quantum Minerals,” Managing Director, Dean Tuck, said.
“Dreadnought is excited to return to exploring for nickel, copper and gold across our project portfolio for the remainder of 2023 whilst our Resource and study preparation work on the rare earths advances in the background.”
First Quantum earning into the project
The potential of the Money Intrusion is underscored by an Earn-In / JV agreement with First Quantum Minerals Ltd (TSE:FM “First Quantum Minerals”), a ~A$20B TSX listed company.
First Quantum Minerals can earn an initial 51% interest by funding $12M of expenditure by 1 March 2026, First Quantum Minerals may withdraw at any time during the earn-in phase with 0% interest.
Upon satisfying the earn-in requirements, a Joint Venture will be formed where First Quantum Minerals may elect to increase its interest to 70% by sole funding expenditure up until a Decision to Mine.
Once a Decision to Mine has been made, Dreadnought can elect to either:
- Maintain its 30% by co-contributing.
- Dilute to 20% and be loan carried by First Quantum Minerals, repaid through revenue.
- Divest its 30% interest to First Quantum Minerals at fair market value.
Dreadnought retains gold interest across all Earn-in / JV tenements.
Fertile Ni-Cu-PGE System Confirmed.
Fertile Ni-Cu-PGE sulphide systems are extremely rare and the Money Intrusion has already been proven to contain high tenor magmatic Ni-Cu-PGE mineralisation.
The Money Intrusion is confirmed to be ~800Ma, a fertile time for Ni-Cu-PGE systems globally and containing highly prospective keel geometries which are suitable for forming trap sites for magmatic sulphide accumulation.
First pass drilling in 2022 intersected magmatic sulphide mineralisation including (ASX: 10 Nov 2022): REYRC002: 13m @ 0.19% Ni, 0.17% Cu, 0.01% Co and 0.08g/t 3PGE from 70m Including: 1m @ 0.85% Ni, 0.77% Cu, 0.46% Co and 0.17g/t 3PGE from 80m REYRC009: 9m @ 0.11% Ni, 0.14% Cu, 0.01% Co and 0.10g/t 3PGE from 30m
Including: 1m @ 0.33% Ni, 0.44% Cu, 0.02% Co and 0.41g/t 3PGE from 31m
