Fowlers Bay Nickel Project

• Fowlers Bay comprises a 700 square kilometre exploration licence located about 150 kilometres west of Ceduna (Figure 1).  A review of the project in 2012 by a nickel sulphide exploration consultant concluded that it is a world class, greenfield exploration target area, and it is being promoted as such by the South Australian government geological survey.
• A gravity geophysical survey was completed in November 2013 over a rectangular target area approximately 9 km long by 3.5 km wide, elongated in a northerly direction. The results showed good correlation between a north-south trending magnetic zone, defined by an earlier aeromagnetic survey. The new gravity data suggests that the magnetic zone is comprised of mafic and possibly ultramafic rocks that may contain nickel sulphides. Evidence for this comes from widely scattered drill holes completed by previous explorers which penetrated to basement through the Eucla Basin cover.
• Exploration activities for the project are being funded by joint venture partner Western Areas Limited (ASX: WSA) (Western Areas), which is a key part of Western Areas’ aggressive exploration push in the Western Gawler region of South Australia.
• The Western Gawler region is known to host mafic-ultramafic intrusive rocks and determining the extent, exact age and prospectivity of these is the primary objective of the exploration activities. The results from the initial phase of exploration are very encouraging, with the identification of olivine gabbro-norite intrusive rocks and geochemical anomalism in a number of areas. The results confirm the initial observations regarding the prospectivity of the Western Gawler region for intrusive related nickel, copper and gold mineralisation. These types of mafic intrusives are well known for hosting significant nickel and copper orebodies in western and central Australia, including Nova-Bollinger and Nebo-Babel.
• Western Areas have completed heritage clearance surveys in preparation for planned stratigraphic drilling within the Yalata Aboriginal Reserve during the first half of 2017.