Toronto-based Palladium One will begin a 17,500-metre drill program this month at its Kaukua South discovery in Finland aimed at delineating an initial resource.
The Kaukua South zone is part of the 24.9-sq.-km Lantinen Koillismaa platinum group element (PGE) and nickel-copper project, which already hosts an open pit resource at the Kaukua deposit. The company believes the new discovery, about 500 metres south of defined resources, is a fault-displaced extension of the Kaukua deposit.
The initial 2,500 metres of the new phase II drill program will focus on a 750-metre-long high-grade section of the deposit between drillholes LK20-006 and LK20-016. In October, that hole returned 62.7 metres of 3.52 g/t of palladium equivalent starting at 23.5 metres downhole. In August, hole LK20-006 returned 166.7 metres grading 1.16 g/t palladium equivalent starting at 43.8 metres depth. Palladium One will also conduct stepout drilling east of that section.
“The shallow mineralization and continuity of drill results demonstrates potential to rapidly add open pit ounces and significantly increase the existing NI 43-101 open pit constrained resource estimate,” said Derrick Weyrauch, the company’s president and CEO, in a release.
Kaukua South so far has a strike length of more than 4 km, defined by drilling.
Kaukua contains an optimized, pit constrained indicated resource of 11 million tonnes grading 1.8 g/t palladium equivalent for 635,600 palladium-equivalent oz. Inferred resources add another 10.9 million tonnes grading 1.5 g/t palladium equivalent for 525,800 oz. The resources were calcuated at a cutoff grade of 0.3 g/t palladium.
(This article first appeared in the Canadian Mining Journal)
