Aldoro Resources is poised to kick-off drilling at its Narndee project, east of Paynes Find in Western Australia. The company owns a strategic ground holding over the underexplored terrane, with recent work outlining two high-priority intrusive nickel-copper-PGE targets that have been flagged for drill testing.
In addition, reconnaissance work over the company’s Windimurra tenure, located about 50km north-east of Narndee, has confirmed the presence of a pegmatite swarm hosting visible lithium-bearing micas, adding a further target to Aldoro’s growing list of prospects in the region.
Interestingly, Aldoro listed on the ASX in late 2018 on the back of a suite of projects in WA’s Murchison region and like many explorers at the time the company has endured a tough few years as the market shunned the sector and the metals markets looked for a clear direction.
However, in 2020 with COVID sending metal prices north and many explorers ducking for cover and returning to home soil, Aldoro began to hit its straps. This was further enhanced by board changes late in the year as Aldoro Chairman and mining entrepreneur Joshua Letcher moved into an executive role, taking charge of the day-to-day operations of the company. Letcher also appointed seasoned resource sector directors Lincoln Ho and Troy Flannery to aid in the company’s transformation.
Since that time, the company has gone from strength to strength, consolidating its tenure and building on key project positions on the Narndee and Windimurra intrusive complexes in the Murchison province. The company also owns tenure along strike from St George Mining’s Mt Alexander nickel discovery in the Eastern Goldfields.
This focus of nickel and copper has also resulted in the company spinning-out its peripheral gold projects into a new vehicle, Aurum Resources, leaving the company to focus on its battery metal projects in WA.
Aldoro’s strategy to prioritise exploration over the Narndee and Windimurra assets has clearly gone down well with the market, with the company’s share price climbing from just 10c in October last year to more than 37c today, after hitting a high of 44c back in April.
The company’s recent work program out at Narndee has included pulling together a wealth of historical exploration data over the project in addition to putting boots on the ground to check the work of previous explorers. It is also worth noting that Aldoro hasn’t been shy about applying a raft of more modern exploration techniques to the overlooked terrane, with ground electromagnetic, or “EM” surveys having been completed earlier this year and quickly bearing fruit.
Aldoro’s geophysics rapidly identified two priority nickel-copper-PGE targets within its tenure. These EM conductors are named VC-1 and VC-11 and sit in a similar geological setting to some of the more famous nickel sulphide discoveries made in WA in recent years.
The VC-1 target lies within a gabbro-ultramafic intrusive complex which appears to be similar in nature to the stratigraphy that hosts the Julimar nickel-PGE discovery near Perth and the revered Nova-Bollinger mine in the Fraser Range.
Curiously, previous exploration around the VC-1 target appears to have missed the potential sulphide system but indicates a broader envelope of nickel and copper mineralisation. Recent field work has also unearthed two base-metal rich gossans just south of the prospect, adding further weight to the emerging target and hinting that the underlying stratigraphy may host a nest of potential targets at depth.
Further north the VC-11 prospect is largely the ‘blind target’, with little historical exploration but hosting a deeper conductor sitting on the contact between a mafic intrusive and granitic unit.
Presently, the company is finishing up detailed moving loop EM over both the VC-1 and 11 targets, as well as several other emerging nickel-copper-PGE prospects, in preparation for upcoming drilling. Aldoro has now cleared access to the two VC targets and expects to crank up the drill rig later this month for its maiden program at Narndee. About 5,000m of drilling is planned for the key prospect areas.
With Aldoro’s drilling program expected to kick-off this month and the company sporting more than $4 million in cash, the budding explorer looks to be in a strong position to ramp up its drilling program as it charges into the latter of 2021 and begins to put its stamp on the resurgent Narndee-Windimurra complex in WA.
Is your ASX-listed company doing something interesting? Contact: matt.birney@businessnews.com.au
By Matt Birney
