Western Mines Group (ASX:WMG) has completed a maiden resource estimate for the Mulga Tank Project in Western Australia, delivering more than 5 million tonnes of contained nickel.
The company is continuing to advance the project and is in the process of planning and developing further exploration programs for 2025.
Western Mines believes the Mulga Tank March 2025 mineral resource represents the largest nickel sulphide deposit in Australia and is likely in the top 10 nickel sulphide resources in the world.
Mulga Tank’s total resource contains 1.968 billion tonnes @ 0.27% nickel, 131 parts per million (ppm) cobalt, 82ppm copper, and 17 parts per billion (ppb) platinum and palladium.
With contained metal within the total resource of the project is 5.3 million tonnes of nickel, 257,000 tonnes of cobalt, 161,000 tonnes of copper, and 1.1 million ounces of platinum and palladium.
In the indicated category, the resource contains 565 million tonnes @ 0.28% nickel, 134ppm cobalt, 104ppb copper, 18ppb platinum and palladium. Meanwhile, in the inferred category, the resource contains 1.403 billion tonnes @ 0.27% nickel, 129ppb cobalt, 73ppm copper, and 17ppb platinum and palladium.
Western Mines, which has a market capitalisation $10.39 million, believes that Mulga Tank’s maiden resource represents the largest nickel sulphide deposit in Australia, and is likely in the top 10 nickel sulphide resources globally.
Managing Director Caedmon Marriott says the mineral resource marks a culmination of Mulga Tank’s exploration results that has been built to unlock the knowledge of the complex.
“It demonstrates what we have long stated — that the main body of the complex hosts a globally significant nickel sulphide deposit, we believe the largest nickel sulphide deposit in Australia and top 10 in the world,” Marriott says.
“We’ve got more than enough tonnes and it will get bigger still as we extend in a number of directions.
“We will continue to infill and upgrade the resource confidence with further drilling but really the key now is to focus our exploration on the higher grade areas within this huge open-pitable volume — looking to follow-up on the 23 intersections greater than 1% nickel, including results up to 4.5% nickel and 4.8% copper, clustering in various zones across the complex.”
Since the initial exploration target estimate, the company has completed two further phases of reverse circulation drilling totalling 36 holes for 11,536m. Western Mines says the results from all the drilling to date have recently been incorporated into a block model that identifies a significant mineralised zone in the main body of the Mulga Tank Complex.
The Mulga Tank Nickel-Cobalt-Copper-Platinum Group Element Project is a major ultramafic complex found on the under-explored Minigwal Greenstone Belt of Western Australia.
The project is located on the Minigwal Greenstone Belt, which lies in the southern Duketon Domain of the Burtville Terrane of the Yilgarn Craton, Western Australia. The Minigwal Greenstone belt is interpreted from aeromagnetics and historical drilling to consist of two belts of northwesterly trending assemblages of ultramafic, mafic volcanic and sedimentary rocks fault bounded by granite to the east and west.
The eastern belt comprises faulted granite and gneiss with thrust-repeated interlayered units of greenstone, BIF and ultramafic to mafic volcanic rocks. The western belt comprises structurally controlled, steeply dipping ultramafic and mafic rocks adjacent to granites. Sub-parallel structures and dolerite dykes that trend east-west cut both belts.
Western Mines is a mineral explorer focused on gold and nickel sulphide deposits across a portfolio of highly prospective projects located on major mineral belts of Western Australia.
Write to Aaliyah Rogan at Mining.com.au
Images: Western Mines Group
