Orion Gold's (ASX:ORN) shares are expected to gain this morning after reconnaissance drilling confirmed nickel potential in the Fraser Range of Western Australia, and there are early similarities to Sirius Resources (ASX:SIR) discoveries.
Drilling has defined coherent nickel anomalies over an extensive area within the Pennor mafic intrusion at the Pennor Target, part of the company's Fraser Range nickel-copper project.
The 3300 metre aircore drilling program sampled fresh rock under 25m-40m of transported cover within the magnetic low, with a peak assay of 1,260ppm nickel.
ORN has achieved a similar tenor of nickel endowment in this first-pass drilling to the results reported by Sirius from their initial aircore drilling at the Crux and Centauri prospects.
Sirius drew analogies between their results and the early exploration results from the drilling of the hangingwall sequence to the Eye which led to the Nova-Bollinger discovery one year later.
ORN has a substantial 5000 metre square landholding in the Fraser Range Belt, located between two of the most significant Australian mineral discoveries of the past decade being Nova and Tropicana.
Nickel tenor
The nickel tenor is significantly higher than the equivalent program at the Peninsula-HA2 target, confirming the prospectivity of Pennor.
Geochemical anomalies overlap areas where prospective lithologies were logged in drill chips, which will further refine the target areas.
News flow coming
ORN has near-term news flow, with results from the detailed geochemical study and petrology work are still to come.
These results, together with geophysical data, will enable targeting of follow-up deeper drilling at what is emerging as a compelling exploration target for Orion.
