Podium Minerals released its maiden Mineral Resource Estimate (MRE) for Parks Reef in October 2018.
Since then, with the aid of comprehensive drilling and a definitive growth strategy, Podium has announced several Mineral Resource upgrades – released in 2019, 2020, early 2022 and now again in August 2022 – demonstrating the appealing project potential.
The previous Mineral Resources were defined over approximately 15km of Parks Reef and contained 2.8Moz combined platinum, palladium and gold plus base metal credits, with 103,000 tonnes of copper.
The updated inferred resource for the PGM horizon is 52.2Mt at 1.64g/t for 3Moz 5E PGM, which has expanded to incorporate the additional platinum group metals of rhodium and iridium.
In addition to this, the potential to recover cobalt has enabled Podium to include this important base metal into the MRE to the amount of 9,300t.
In terms of metal split, the PGM reef contains 0.81g/t platinum (Pt), 0.66g/t palladium (Pd), 0.08g/t Au, 0.06g/t rhodium (Rh) and 0.03g/t iridium (Ir) plus 0.07% copper (Cu), 0.09% nickel (Ni) and 0.018% cobalt (Co).
The latest resource update was ascertained through the analysis of archived pulp samples that began in early 2022 and was completed in April 2022 – with the company taking the opportunity to investigate for the presence and continuity of rhodium and iridium within the Parks Reef orebody. Results confirmed the presence of both elements along the full 15km strike.
The addition of geological blocks that previously fell under the 1g/t cut-off as a 3E PGM grade has resulted in an increase in tonnes from 50.6Mt to 52.2Mt for the PGM Horizon.
With the ability to now incorporate Rh and Ir, these geological blocks now exceed the 1g/t cut-off, hence enabling their inclusion in the resource.
The MRE detailed for Parks Reef in September 2021 included the full 15km strike length and was defined to a depth of 100m below surface.
This was based on a preliminary assessment of a potential open-pit mining operation.
Following further, more recent preliminary mining studies, a 2.4km portion of the western part of the Mineral Resource where existing drilling is at its deepest – intersecting the reef up to 225m below surface – has now been classified as Inferred to a depth of up to 325m below surface (100m down dip from the deepest reef intersection on each drill section).
Learn more via our MRE update announcement, dated 02 August 2022.
The competent persons statement as follows:
The information in this announcement that relates to the August 2022 Parks Reef updated Mineral Resource is based on and fairly represents information compiled by Mr Mark Fleming (Head of Geology for Podium Minerals Limited) and Mr Lauritz Barnes, (Consultant with Trepanier Pty Ltd).
Mr Fleming and Mr Barnes are both members of the Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy, with Mr Fleming also a fellow of the Australian Institute of Geoscientists and Mr Barnes is also a member of the Australian Institute of Geoscientists.
Both have sufficient experience of relevance to the styles of mineralisation and types of deposits under consideration, and to the activities undertaken to qualify as Competent Persons as defined in the 2012 Edition of the Joint Ore Reserves Committee (JORC) Australasian Code for Reporting of Exploration Results, Mineral Resources and Ore Reserves.
Specifically, Mr Fleming is the Competent Person for the database (including all drilling information), the geological and mineralisation models plus completed the site visits. Mr Barnes is the Competent Person for the construction of the 3-D geology / mineralisation model plus the estimation. Mr Fleming and Mr Barnes consent to the inclusion in this report of the matters based on their information in the form and context in which they appear.