Toro Energy Limited (ASX: TOE) has commenced a 2021 diamond drilling campaign on the company’s 100% owned Dusty Nickel Project in Western Australia.
The Project is located in the Yandal Greenstone Belt, some 50km east of the world class Mt Keith nickel deposit and 15km NE of the world class Bronzewing Gold Mine.
The drilling is planned to consist of at least 2,600m of diamond drilling, with mud rotary collars where needed, to penetrate through the paleochannel that lies above last year’s Dusty Nickel discoveries.
The drilling will be focused on testing for extension of the massive nickel sulphides intersected at Dusty, gathering geological and structural information that will aid in the determination of orientation and morphology of the massive nickel sulphides so far intersected at Dusty and limited step-out testing of the fertility of the Dusty host rock for nickel sulphide mineralisation along strike.
The drilling will include two holes at the Yandal One Target Area to test the base of the Yandal One komatiite-ultramafic rock unit at depth after favourable geochemistry was intersected in Toro’s prior drilling at Yandal One and at a relatively shallow depth, but which has not yet been followed up.
Approximately 600m of the overall programme will consist of drilling to complete the 2020 drill plan at Dusty. It is expected that the overall drill plan should result in a maximum of 12 mud rotary/diamond or diamond only drill holes.
Massive nickel sulphides were first intersected at Dusty by Toro in 2019 with Reverse Circulation (RC) drill hole TERC13 but were not confirmed until analysis of diamond drill hole TED03 in 2020, which showed that TERC13 had intersected 15cm of massive nickel sulphides grading 1.86% nickel. 0.08% cobalt and 0.19% copper from 177.5m downhole. Significant intersections to date include:
TED04: 2.6m at 3.45% Nickel, 0.18% copper, 0.15% cobalt, and 0.388g/t platinum and palladium from 184.5m.
TED07: 9m at 2.07% Ni from 250.9m including: 2.0m at 4.01% nickel, 0.27% copper, 0.13% cobalt and 0.45 g/t platinum and palladium from 250.9m; and 2.0m at 3.85% nickel, 0.41% copper, 0.13% cobalt and 0.45 g/t platinum and palladium from 255.5m.
