Positive Golden Ridge JV results for Pioneer

Pioneer Nickel has received positive assay results from the Golden Ridge....

  Pioneer Nickel has received positive assay results from the Golden Ridge Joint Venture with Australian Mines and has now earned a 51 percent interest in the JV by exceeding $2.25m in exploration expenditure.The results, announced yesterday, are from Pioneer’s recently completed 176-hole, 13,000m aircore drilling program, which was designed to test for anomalous zones along unexplored ultramafic contacts.Results returned included: 2m at 0.47% Ni, 438ppm Cu, 11m at 0.51% Ni, 375ppm Cu and 3m at 0.57% Ni, 1,491ppm Cu from new zones. Pioneer’s Managing Director, David Crook said the results from the drilling program at Golden Ridge were very exciting. “The company has allocated a proportion of its budget to look for new mineralisation at Golden Ridge,” Mr Crook said. “There are five instances of known nickel sulphides within the project, however by broadening our exploration range with RAB and aircore drilling, we plan to make a new discovery.” “Follow-up programs will be put into place immediately to test at least four new targets, including additional geochemistry, EM surveys and deeper drilling,” he said. The Golden Ridge JV Project is located 30km southeast of Kalgoorlie and provides Pioneer with access to 100sqkm of granted mining leases, prospective for nickel sulphide mineralisation, that surround, but exclude, the Blair Nickel Mine. The project targets the very prospective Golden Ridge Ultramafic suite that is host to nickel mineralisation at Blair South, Area 20A, Marshall, Duplex Hill and other locations. Australian Mines is considering an election to either contribute to further exploration expenditure on a pro-rata basis or allow Pioneer to earn a further 19 percent to reach a 70 percent interest by expending an additional $3m.