Western Mines Group (ASX:WMG) Managing Director Caedmon Marriott says the company is continuing the search for what it describes as the “best part” of the Mulga Tank Complex in Western Australia.
“Part of our exploration focus with the reverse circulation drilling is to prove up two to three years of more than 0.4% nickel ‘starter-pit’ material to optimise a possible future mine plan,” Marriott says.
The news comes after receiving further geochemical assay results from a phase four reverse circulation drilling program.
All four holes show broad zones of nickel sulphide mineralisation – elevated nickel and sulphide coincident with highly anomalous copper and platinum group elements. The holes extend nickel sulphide mineralisation outside of previously tested zones within the complex and outside the current resource shell.
Drillhole MTRC066 returned 269m @ 0.33% nickel, 144 parts per million (ppm) cobalt, 215ppm copper from 61m, including 82m @ 0.43% nickel, 318ppm cobalt, 533ppm copper from 61m and 6m @ 1.18% nickel, 480ppm cobalt, 0.11% copper from 94m.
Marriott adds that the area around hole MTRC066 looks like a good follow-up candidate with the hole returning 82m @ 0.43% nickel from essentially immediately under the sand cover.
“The hole was well mineralised throughout with highly elevated sulphur and associated chalcophile element results,” he says.
Western Mines has conducted a combination of diamond and reverse circulation drilling to infill and prove up the extent of shallow disseminated nickel sulphide mineralisation, as well as testing deeper targets for basal massive sulphide.
Each phase of drilling and batch of geochemical assay results continues to build the company’s understanding of the Mulga Tank Complex. The company intends to use the results to feedback into ongoing exploration targeting work looking to vector towards zones of high-grade mineralisation in what is believed to be an “extensive” hybrid nickel sulphide mineral system.
In Western Australia, Western Mines has what is now touted as the largest nickel sulphide deposit in the country, as previously reported.
For the past few years the company has demonstrated extensive disseminated mineralisation within the complex – Mount Keith-style nickel mineralisation – at its Mulga Tank Ni-Cu-Co-PGE Project, on the Minigwal Greenstone Belt, in the state’s Eastern Goldfields.
In April 2025, Western Mines completed a first mineral resource estimate (MRE) for the shallow disseminated nickel sulphide mineralisation at Mulga Tank. The deposit is a globally “significant, large-scale, open-pittable” nickel sulphide deposit defined at 0.20% nickel cut-off.
As Mining.com.au reported, Mulga Tank has a resource of 1.968 billion tonnes @ 0.27% nickel, 131 parts per million cobalt, 82ppm copper, and 17 parts per billion platinum and palladium with S:Ni 0.9.
Recently speaking to this news service, Marriott reckons despite the metal’s inherent value, nickel is a forgotten commodity, adding “there’s essentially no other nickel explorers left”.
Western Mines continues to believe in not only nickel but also its Mulga Tank project.
Write to Aaliyah Rogan at Mining.com.au
Images: Western Mines Group
