Ausgold Unites with Great Boulder on Winchester Nickel-Copper Project

Ausgold (ASX:AUC) has finalized a farm-in and joint-venture agreement with Great Boulder Resources (ASX:GBR) regarding the Winchester nickel-copper project in Western Australia.

Through the agreement, Ausgold will be issued 1.5 million shares of Great Boulder; meanwhile, Great Boulder has the option to earn a 51-percent interest in Winchester by contributing AU$250,000 to exploration over two years. The company can boost that interest to 75 percent by spending an extra AU$250,000 over four years; Great Boulder has already spent approximately AU$100,000 at Winchester.

Ausgold will retain a 25 percent free-carried interest to decision to mine in Winchester once Great Boulder has met the minimum spending requirements.

“The Winchester project could play an important role in the company’s strategy to establish a substantial copper-nickel-cobalt operation. The Winchester project represents part of a large igneous province with magmatic sulphide mineralization now identified over a vast area” Great Boulder Managing Director Stefan Murphy said in a statement.

“Combining Winchester with our Mt Venn and Eastern Mafic deposits at Yamarna is an important step in building a consolidated copper-nickel-cobalt business for the region.”

Winchester is part of Great Boulder’s Yamarna project, the latter of which is comprised of two exploration licenses, E38/2129 and E38/3311. Located 40 kilometers north of Great Boulder’s Mt Venn project, Yamarna covers approximately 300 square kilometers of the northern Mt Venn Greenstone Belt.

Two reverse circulation drill holes were completed at Winchester in October 2018, which revealed high-grade nickel and copper mineralization. Significant results from the drilling included 7 meters at 1.1 percent copper, 0.2 percent nickel, 0.01 percent cobalt from 123 meters, and 13 meters at 0.9 percent copper, 0.3 percent nickel and 0.02 percent cobalt from 138 meters.

For the time being, exploration activities are in progress at Winchester with a 3,400 meter aircore geochemistry drilling program beginning this week. Additionally, a tenement wide ground gravity survey is set to start sometime in the next few weeks.

As of March 12, copper was trading at US$6,509 per tonne on the London Metal Exchange, while nickel was trading at US$13,130 per tonne.

While Ausgold stocks remained unchanged at AU$0.021 on Wednesday (March 13) Great Boulder shares took a hit on the ASX, dropping 7.14 percent to close the trading day at AU$0.13 per share.

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Securities Disclosure: I, Olivia Da Silva, hold no direct investment interest in any company mentioned in this article.