Chalice set to drill Venture conductors

Fresh from discovering its own 330m tonne ore body, sharemarket darling Chalice Mining is set to get the rods spinning again – this time to test farm-in partner Venture Minerals’ conductors in the same geological province as its extraordinary Gonneville discovery. Previous work at Venture Minerals’ South West project revealed no less than 13 EM anomalies scattered across the 20km long Thor magnetic anomaly target area and the partners are about to get some answers with the rotary truth diviner about to do its work.

Chalice knows a thing or two about EM anomalies having discovered the largest nickel-copper-PGE deposit in recent history – and in a geological province that is not really well known for a lot of major mineral discoveries.

Whilst Chalice clearly has a massive job on its hands getting Gonneville into production it is curious that it has elected to spend its time and money on Venture’s South West project.

Chalice claims responsibility for putting the West Yilgarn nickel, copper, platinum group element province on the map with its Gonneville discovery and whilst Thor is considerably south of that deposit, it sits in the same geological province.

Chalice must spend $1.2 million to earn 51 per cent ownership of Venture’s ground and a further $2.5 million to achieve 70 percent ownership. It has spent $400k to date and has until the 29th of July 2024 to spend $3.7 million to earn the 70 per cent stake.

In parallel with the maiden diamond core drilling program at Thor, Chalice has released a horde of geologists into the field to conduct an extensive auger surface geochemistry program in its search for what it says could be any combination of nickel, copper, cobalt, zinc lead, platinum, palladium and gold.

Importantly massive sulphides have already been discovered at the project with previous drilling at Thor by Venture turning up a 2.4 metre hit going 0.5 per cent copper, 0.05 per cent nickel and 0.04 per cent cobalt accompanied by anomalous gold and palladium.

Venture and Chalice have released two side by side images that give cause for pause – the first is Chalice’s 20km Julimar aeromagnetic signature that takes in the Gonneville discovery and the second is the remarkably similar looking Thor target that at the very least looks to be of a similar size and orientation.

With Venture deeply engaged in defining the potential for underground mining in its northwest Tasmania Mount Lindsay tin-tungsten project, it is no doubt very happy to leave the heavy lifting at its South West Project to Chalice.

It is often said in the exploration business that you are only as good as your last exploration play and with a 330mt ore body tucked neatly under its belt from its last serious field campaign, Chalice is rippling with muscles and if it likes Venture’s EM anomalies, it is hard for mere mortals to argue.

Is your ASX-listed company doing something interesting? Contact: matt.birney@businessnews.com.au