Discoveries

Congratulations to Stavely Minerals. For more than seven years the company has been doggedly exploring their Victorian tenure for base metals. After limited success at Thursday’s Gossan searching for a major high grade porphyry system the rigs were once again turned toward a major structure along the same intrusion in the hope that historic copper/gold intersections could be repeated along strike and expanded upon. And in fantastic fashion, the first results from SMD150 include: 32 m at 5.88% copper, 1.00 g/t gold and 58 g/t silver from the shallow depth of 68 m.

Newexco have been supporting Stavely’s geophysics exploration since listing and hope the application of the latest down-hole electromagnetic technology will provide targets for expanding on successful results to date.

Panoramic Resources began an exploration programme north of Savannah Deeps in late February, targeting structurally offset repeats of their Ni-Cu-Co sulphide mineralisation.

Discovery hole KUD1525 intersected 89.3 m @ 1.6 % Ni from 704.9 m down-hole.

Newexco has been working with Panoramic to employ the sequence of exploration holes at Savannah North as platforms for Down-Hole Electromagnetics. The first data were interpreted and released to market on the 3^rd of March, revealing a significant off-hole conductor with extents of greater than 500 x 300 m. The results have the potential to add considerably to the mine-life of the Savannah Nickel Mine, a pleasing outcome for Panoramic and  Newexco who’s partnership in exploration has continued successfully for more than 10 years.

A 10.5 m nickel mineralised intersection was recorded in the second hole PLJD0002, of the Emily Ann Extension drill programme. The intersection grades at an impressive 3.2 %, containing 5.7 m at 4.7 % and 1.3 m at 10.2 %. The detailed analysis, targeting the potential Emily Ann extension, was developed over several months by the internal Poseidon geological team in parallel with Newexco. Mr Neil Hutchinson, General Manager of Geology mentioned, “This is an impressive intersection and is the culmination of considerable high quality scientific work between our geology team and Newexco. It opens up many opportunities around the historical Emily Ann Mine and will hopefully lead to the discovery of an economic deposit.”

Spectacular intersections, including 16.5 m of high tenor copper grading 18.9% Cu and 2.1 g/t Au at Sandfire Resources Ltd Monty prospect (a Sandfire 70% / 30% Talisman JV), have ignited an otherwise dull market for base metal explorers. The discoveries, on the opposite side of the Bryah Basin to their world-class DeGrussa Copper Mine,  are a testament to the integrated approach of the Doolgunna exploration team, led by Ian O’Grady and including Newexco’s geophysicist Nicholas Ebner.

The discoveries reward a commitment to scientific rigour and a methodical approach to exploration: collecting the highest quality Electromagnetic data and interpretative skill. Further intersections have confirmed the discovery as a significant new VMS deposit and validate Sandfire and Newexco’s innovation and exploration strategy and adds to the impressive list of discoveries Newexco has been involved with.

Sirius Resources in conjunction with Newexco’s Geophysical Principal Bill Amann, designed and implemented the geophysical programme from which the discovery hole, SFRC0024, was targeted. This lead to the discovery and drill-out of the Nova nickel sulphide deposit, east of Norseman, in the Albany-Fraser Belt.

Further exploration focusing on the acquisition and interpretation of a prospect scale ground gravity survey, contributed to the drilling of hole SFRD0167 and the discovery of the blind Bollinger nickel sulphide deposit down plunge of Nova. The current resource at Nova-Bollinger is 14.6Mt @ 2.2 % Ni and 0.9% Cu.

Newexco remains involved in all aspects of the geophysical programmes and regional targeting.

Newexco’s team of geologists and geophysicists discovered the Spotted Quoll deposit at Forrestania for client Western Areas NL, in October 2007.  This high grade nickel deposit remained undetected for over 35 years despite diamond drill testing by previous explorers. Indeed, the main Western Belt baseline runs directly over the subcrop of the deposit. The interpretation of a subtle surface Moving-Loop EM response led to the discovery of this world class deposit. The exploration concept, survey design, data acquisition, interpretation and drill-targeting were all conducted in-house by Newexco personnel. The initial resource at Spotted Quoll was in excess of 2 Mt @ 6% Ni: subsequent drilling has increased this resource.

The gold and nickel prospects at Blair North were discovered at Blair North and the George’s Reward Prospect drilled to JORC Inferred Status. Also discovered was the Northern Zone where sheeted veins of high grade visible gold is hosted in granite, basalt and felsic volcanics beneath a deep masking palaeochannel.

Newexco discovered the blind Flying Fox deposits at Forrestania for client Western Areas NL in August, 2003. These buried and structurally dislocated deposits remained undetected by previous explorers for more than 30 years.

Subsequent to the T-1 to T-5 discoveries Newexco planned and drilled a series of holes culminating in the drilling of parent hole FFD136 and daughters that was collared in the hanging-wall above the host sequence and drilled parallel to the interpreted structural offset as shown. DHEM identified numerous anomalies which subsequent drill targeting confirmed as the nickeliferous horizons T6 and T7. The careful geological deduction and innovative DHEM surveys identified these deep ‘blind’ deposits over 1,000m below surface beneath several hundred metres of metasediments, barren granite and greenstone. Resources quoted in the WSA 2008 Annual Report were 2.3 Mt @ 4.7% Ni.