Auroch Minerals (ASX:AOU) - Managing Director, Aidan Platel
Managing Director, Aidan Platel
Source: The Market Herald
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  • Auroch Minerals (AOU) begins its exploration activities for 2022 with a focus on the Saints, Arden and Nepean projects
  • Diamond drilling will begin at Saints next week to upgrade the classification of the current mineral resource estimate from inferred to indicated
  • Diamond drilling has resumed at Arden with drilling planned to test the southern extent of a large gravity anomaly and anomalous geochemistry
  • A ground dipole-dipole induced polarisation survey is set to resume at Nepean shortly
  • Shares in Auroch are up 9.09 per cent on the market and are trading at 12 cents

Auroch Minerals (AOU) has begun its exploration activities for 2022 with a focus on the Saints, Arden and Nepean projects.

Saints Nickel Project

A 3700-metre diamond drilling program will begin at the Saints Nickel Project in Western Australia next week.

Drilling will focus on the Saint Patricks and Saint Andrews prospects with aims to upgrade the classification of the current mineral resource estimate (MRE) of 1.02 million tonnes at two per cent nickel for 21,400 tonnes of contained nickel from inferred to indicated.

A further 2000 metres of drilling has been planned to test for strike and down-plunge extensions to the known nickel sulphide mineralisation.

Arden Zinc-Copper Project

The Arden Project lies 315 kilometres north of Adelaide in South Australia and has a strike potential of over 10 kilometres.

Diamond drilling has resumed at the Ragless Range Zinc Prospect with drilling planned to test the southern extent of a large gravity target and anomalous geochemistry identified by previous drilling and sampling.

Nepean Nickel Project

Auroch is set to resume a ground dipole-dipole induced polarisation (IP) survey at the Nepean North Prospect shortly.

To date, 12 of the 19 lines have been completed with work identifying strong changeability features below the weathering profile.

One of these features measures a strike of over 1.3 kilometres and represents a strong target for orogenic gold mineralisation.

A second feature was identified in the east and represents a nickel sulphide target for follow-up drill testing.

Managing Director Aidan Platel commented on the drilling program.

“The company has a very busy year ahead and so we are pleased that we could get activities underway so early in the new year,” Mr Platel said.

“In addition to ongoing exploration activities at Nepean and Arden, our focus for this quarter is a major drill programme at Saints which is fundamental for the ongoing Scoping Study due to be completed at the end of March.”

Shares in Auroch were up 9.09 per cent on the market and were trading at 12 cents at 12:08 pm AEDT.

AOU by the numbers
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