centauri-cux-plato-highway drilling to start

Both SIR and ENT have now announced that their drilling is about to start along the Centauri-Crux-Plato-Highway line. This line of prospectivity follows the axis of the main Fraser Range gravity ridge, astride which Nova also sits, a little further to the northeast (see Fig.1 in ENT 14 April ASX release, 1st link below).


SIR's Centauri-Crux drilling programme is to start 'before mid-May', ie. within the next 3 to 4 weeks:

http://www.asx.com.au/asxpdf/20140416/pdf/42p1141k8vgyxr.pdf


ENT's Highway-Plato drilling programme starts tomorrow:

http://www.asx.com.au/asxpdf/20140414/pdf/42nznqgdwcl33q.pdf


In my opinion, ENT's Plato, Heart and Highway targets are fantastic, lying as they do along the absolute crest of the thickest part of that gravity ridge, where you would expect to find the maximum development of the (very dense) nickel-hosting ultramafic host rocks. They are are well-defined by coincident soil Ni-Cu-Co geochemical anomalies, by EM geophysical anomalies, and by a prominent gravity high.

See also previous ENT ASX releases, eg.:

http://www.asx.com.au/asxpdf/20130621/pdf/42gls07q8wl799.pdf


However, I am also incredibly impressed with today's SIR exploration update (2nd link above), as the coherence of the new EM anomalies that they have found immediately underlying both their Centauri and Crux geochemical targets looks to me to be so convincing that I find it hard to believe that they are not due to sulphide bodies. This is particularly so at Centauri where SIR have now found gossan outcrop coinciding with the geochemical and EM anomaly, 'Gossan' being the characteristic rock type that is formed from the weathering of metal sulphides, which would appear to be why they are now drilling Centauri first. Why wait, if you have got a target like that?

So in my opinion, even if ENT's first-pass drilling on this line of prospects does not come up with immediate evidence of nickel sulphides, I will be very surprised not to get at least some evidence sulphides from the drilling by SIR, just along the gravity ridge, to the southwest, at the Centauri Ni Cu gossan and EM target.

And if SIR do hit shallow nickel sulphides beneath the Centauri gossan, then I think that the entire southern segment of the Nova-Crux gravity ridge could become the hot new focus for nickel exploration in the area.




(As ever though, do not act on anything I say. I am not an investment adviser and this is not investment advice)