Ardea Resources (ASX: ARL) has announced ‘very-high-grade’ historical nickel-cobalt and rare earth results from re-assay work at its Kalpini Nickel Project in Western Australia.
The results were generated from RC drill pulps at the project’s Wellington East and Acra North pits as well as the Eastern Komatiite Belt, with significant values including:
- Hole WERC0371: 12m @ 1.70% Ni, 0.151% Co, 28g/t Sc from 20m; including
- 0.244% TREO
- 1.320% TRMO
- Hole VKPRC0112: 4m @ 1.66% Ni, 0.102% Co, 40g/t Sc from 29m; including
- 0.1297% TREO
- 0.7193% TRMO
The company notes that the observed TREO readings are approximately one-tenth of the grade required for a standalone rare earths operation, however are expected to go into solution with the target nickel.
Speaking on the results, Ardea Resources Managing Director Andrew Penkethman said: “The Kalpini drill pump re-assay was a major undertaking for Ardea in 2021, with the principal objective to validate historic resource drilling and obtain scandium assays for the current re-estimation of the full Kalgoorlie Nickel Project (KNP) Mineral Resource Estimate (MRE).
The importance of cobalt as a significant revenue contributor for the KNP was validated in the 2018 PFS. Significantly, the cobalt revenue credit reduced the then estimated C1 operating cost from US$5.59/lb to US$0.42/lb*. If scandium and now RRE’s can be configured in the flowsheet as additional revenue contributors, there are significant improvements to the already robust KNP financial metrics.
“If scandium and now RRE’s can be configured in the flowsheet as additional revenue contributors, there are significant improvements to the already robust KNP financial metrics”
These studies are all subject to the current Ardea-ALS bench-scale metallurgical R&D, where material with REE and RM credits are targeted in R&D programs.
These R&D programs for Ardea are specifically targeting Critical Minerals, as supply chain security is more important than ever as the World continues the transition to a low carbon future.”
The drill pulp was reanalysed as part of the company’s reevaluation of the wider Kalgoorlie Nickel Project MRE, and to generate JORC-compliant scandium grade estimates.
Importantly, this work was guided by geostatistical analysis conducted prior to Ardea acquiring the tenure.
The Kalpini Project covers 121km² and is located 70km north-east of the city of Kalgoorlie-Boulder, with Ardea owning 100% of the mining lease tenure.
The company notes that follow up diamond core drilling will be twinned with the recently-completed RC drill pulp to gather materials for bench-scale metallurgy, while a further RC drill campaign is set to be conducted across targeted areas once pulp re-assay results are interpreted.
