Palladium One lays groundwork for massive sulphide project in Finland

Palladium One Mining (TSXV: PDM) has extended the Kaukua South zone anomaly at its flagship Läntinen Koillismaa (LK) PGE-nickel-copper project in north-central Finland.

“Reconnaissance drilling carried out by previous owners of the property showed mineralization to be associated with the anomaly, and we have now extended it over four kilometres into a large area of overburden that has never been drill tested before,” Derrick Weyrauch, the company’s president and CEO, said in a telephone interview. “It’s opened up a whole new area of exploration for us and we’re really excited about its potential.”

Results from a recent induced polarization (IP) survey showed a large chargeability anomaly, representing the eastern extension of the palladium-dominant Kaukua South zone. The anomaly extends to the eastern edge of the survey grid, representing the edge of the company’s permitted boundary. As a result, Palladium One has applied for a 91-sq. km permit covering the potential extension of the Kaukua South mineralization.

“At the moment, we’re holding what is known as a reservation permit that allows us to conduct exploration activities that are low impact and so does not allow us to carry out drilling,” Weyrauch said. “However, there is much work to be done on the property before drilling can proceed, including a lot of mapping, sampling and geophysics interpretations, which we will carry out over the one to two year period that we have the reservation.”

Once the interpretation work is complete, the company intends to apply for an exploration permit, which will allow it to drill in the extended zone.

In other news, the company recently acquired a 200 sq. km property, 25 km to the southeast of the LK project.

The new land package, called Kostonjarvi (KS), covers a large buried gravity and magnetic anomaly that the company believes represents a buried feeder dyke to the Koillismaa Complex, which hosts the platinum group elements, copper and nickel mineralization at LK.

Although the KS and LK projects are contiguous, the targets are very different, the company says.

The palladium-dominant LK project, 160 km northeast of the port of Oulu, is an open-pit style deposit, featuring disseminated sulphide mineralization along a prospective basal unit contained within the Koillismaa complex and Palladium One believes LK is similar to Ivanhoe Mines’ (TSX: IVN; US-OTC: IVPAF) Platreef deposit in South Africa.

In contrast, the KS project is an underground, high-grade massive sulphide target situated within the feeder dyke of the Koillismaa complex, and the company believes it has similarities with the Norilsk-Talnakh nickel deposits of East Siberia and Voisey’s Bay in Labrador, Canada.

“The two finds are part of the same geological system but the targets are different,” Neil Pettigrew, Palladium One’s vice president exploration, explained in the interview. “The KS system, which covers the western one-third of the buried feeder dyke anomaly and has been subject of numerous academic studies, has been interpreted to eventually connect to the Koillismaa complex and the copper, nickel, PGE sulphides are contiguous to our existing flagship LK project.”

The KS target remains underexplored, particularly where it connects to the Koiliismaa complex, and exploration targets at KS will be the ‘traps’ in the feeder dyke that have potential to contain massive sulphide mineralization, says the company.

The addition of KS now brings the company’s total land package in Finland to 322 square kilometres.

At the LK project, the company has outlined a pit-constrained resource for its Kaukau deposit of 10.99 million indicated tonnes grading 0.81 gram palladium per tonne, 0.27 gram platinum per tonne, 0.09 gram gold per tonne, (1.17 grams PGE per tonne), 0.15% copper and 0.09% nickel for 635,600 palladium equivalent ounces.

Inferred resources add 10.88 million tonnes grading 0.64 gram palladium per tonne, 0.20 gram platinum per tonne, 0.08 gram gold per tonne, (0.92 gram PGE per tonne), 0.135% copper and 0.08% nickel for 525,800 palladium equivalent oz. for a pit-constrained cut-off grade of 0.3 gram palladium equivalent per tonne.

The deposit is open for expansion, and the company completed 2,000 metres of a 5,000-metre drill program before having to suspend the work program due to COVID-19.

Drilling at the Kaukua deposit will target zones of higher-grade PGE-copper-nickel mineralization within the current resource that was not followed up in previous drill programs. Infill drilling will also seek to upgrade inferred resources to the indicated category.

The company also plans to drill its Haukiaho deposit, 12 km to the south of Kaukua.

At press time in Toronto, Palladium One was trading at 6¢ per share within a 52-week trading range of 4.5¢ and 22¢. The company has 111.2 million common shares outstanding for a $6.6-million market capitalization.