Work at the Jaguar Project, Brazil. Source: Centaurus Metals/Twitter
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  • Shares in Centaurus Metals (CTM) trade sideways after the company releases the latest set of assay results from its Jaguar Nickel Sulphide project in Brazil
  • The company says resource growth and greenfields exploration at the project continues to deliver “outstanding” results ahead of a planned resource upgrade
  • The company returned nickel hits from the Onça Preta deposit and the Jaguar South, Central, Central North, and West areas, as well as at the Tigre prospect
  • Centaurus Managing Director Darren Gordon says the company is on track to deliver its planned resource upgrade before the end of the year
  • Shares in Centaurus minerals were grey at $1.08 each at 11:31 am AEDT

Shares in Centaurus Metals (CTM) are trading sideways today after the company released the latest set of assay results from its Jaguar Nickel Sulphide project in Brazil.

The company said resource growth and greenfields exploration at the project, which lies in the Carajás Mineral Province, continued to deliver “outstanding” results ahead of a planned resource upgrade for the project before the end of the year.

Some of the best results from step-out drilling at the Onça Preta deposit include a 40.8-metre hit grading 1.22 per cent nickel from 269 metres. This intersection included a 14.8-metre zone at 2.22 per cent nickel from 295 metres.

Meanwhile, step-out and in-fill drilling at the Jaguar South, Central, Central North, and West areas returned results such as a 33.5-metre hit at 0.79 per cent nickel from 14.6 metres and a 16.6-metre hit at 1.23 per cent nickel from 123.1 metres.

On top of all this, the first assays from reverse circulation (RC) drilling at the Tigre prospect included a 12-metre intersection grading 0.71 per cent nickel from 96 metres and a 13-metre intersection grading 0.63 per cent nickel from 140 metres.

The company said these results mean the Tigre prospect could potentially be included in the upcoming resource upgrade.

Centaurus Managing Director Darren Gordon said the “consistent flow of high-quality drilling results” from Brazil was a testament to the scale and quality of the company’s Jaguar project.

“We are pleased to see that both resource development and extensional drilling along with explorational drilling is delivering for us, putting the company in a strong position to deliver its second major mineral resource upgrade for 2021 next month,” Mr Gordon said.

He said the Onça Preta and Jaguar deposits were still open at depth, and as the company continued to drill some newly-defined downhole electromagnetic (DHEM) conductor plates, it was hitting wide zones of semi-massive and massive sulphised in most holes.

“The new step-out intersections are located immediately below the scoping study stope designs and this suggests that the resource should be able to be pushed deeper, which in turn should allow the underground mine plan to also be extended as part of the feasibility study,” he said.

“Overall, it is clear that while the existing MRE is already very extensive and is one of the largest undeveloped nickel sulphide deposits globally, we have only just scratched the surface in terms of resource potential at Jaguar.”

As it stands, the Onça Preta alone hosts a 3.7-million-tonne resource at 1.58 per cent nickel.

According to Centaurus, this makes up just one section of the mineral resource estimate for the wider Jaguar project, that currently stands at 58.9 million tonnes at 0.96 per cent nickel for 562,600 tonnes of contained nickel.

Shares in Centaurus minerals were grey at $1.08 each at 2:04 pm AEDT. The company has a $385.1 million market cap.

CTM by the numbers
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