Galileo strikes more cobalt
MARK Creasy-backed Galileo Mining is a step closer to developing a commercial cobalt mine in WA’s goldfields region, after announcing a new 4100 tonne cobalt resource within its Norseman project.
The Maiden JORC 2012 Inferred Resource for the Goblin prospect recorded 4.9 million tonnes at 0.08 per cent cobalt for 4100 tonnes of contained cobalt.
With the addition of the Goblin prospect, the global resource base of the Norseman cobalt project now stood at 25.1 million tonnes at 0.11 per cent cobalt (at a 0.06 per cent cobalt cut-off) for 26,600 tonnes of cobalt and 122,400 tonnes of nickel.
Galileo managing director Brad Underwood said the new JORC resource at the Goblin prospect validated the company’s strategy of building up the project’s resource base while undertaking metallurgical test work to understand the most efficient method of metal extraction from those resources.
“The Goblin resource is a great result and confirms our belief that significant zones of cobalt mineralisation occur outside of our current JORC resources,” Mr Underwood said.
“We are confident that this continues to be the case and look forward to the opportunity of adding further resources with our exploration and resource extension drilling programs planned for 2019.”
The Goblin prospect was 3km south of Galileo’s main resource at Norseman and had an identified strike of cobalt mineralisation of more than 2km.
According to Galileo, the cobalt mineralisation occured at shallow depths of between 12 metres and 60 metres and was consistent in style with the company’s existing JORC resources at Norseman.
In early December the explorer announced metallurgical test work results had demonstrated up to 95 per cent cobalt metal extraction and 66 per cent nickel metal extraction from Norseman project concentrate samples.
Mr Underwood said the results showed that Galileo was making substantial progress towards understanding the best way to extract cobalt and nickel from its Norseman resources.