Bardoc Project - Gold

The Bardoc Gold Project is centred on the historical Gold mining centre of Bardoc, located 45 kilometres north of Kalgoorlie. Nickelore controls 100% of the project, which has a combined tenure area of approximately 50 square kilometres and encompasses over 15 kilometres of strike of the Bardoc Tectonic Zone (BTZ). Project access is extremely good with excellent proximity to both infrastructure and gold processing plants.

Both the geological and structural setting at Bardoc are extremely prospective for large scale gold mineralisation as is evident by the numerous mining centres in the immediate area, including the very successful Paddington deposit (4Moz). Major gold deposits in the area are associated with the Bardoc Tectonic Zone (BTZ), a broad structural regime that extends over a strike length of 75 kilometres and hosts in excess of 6Moz of gold.

Following the acquisition of the Bardoc Gold Project, Nickelore completed an extensive data review and target generation exercise designed to identify both regional and local exploration targets. The regional analysis identified several large mineralised structures that intersected within the Bardoc Gold Project. These structural intersections are highly significant as they have historically hosted large gold deposits in the broader Bardoc area making them a high priority target for future exploration.

In addition to the regional analysis, Nickelore has completed a detailed review of local mineralisation with a specific focus identifying high-grade gold occurrences that have had little or not testing at depth. Results revealed that due to the lack of any significant exploration below the top 50 metres, Bardoc contains a large number of high grade targets that have never been tested.

Nickelore prioritised these targets in preparation for several phases of exploration involving RAB, RC and diamond drilling scheduled for second half of 2003. The Company has selected targets based on their commercial potential to produce either a “stand alone” deposits, or toll treatable ore bodies.

As the Bardoc Gold Project is so strategically located both in terms of infrastructure, structural setting, and proximity to major gold deposits the Company is faced with a large number of potential exploration targets. Substantial effort has been focussed on selecting the most prospective of these targets to give Nickelore the best possible opportunity for exploration success.

Following an extensive data review and target generation exercise, designed to identify both regional and local exploration targets within the Bardoc Project area, the Company completed 2,341 metres of rotary air blast (RAB) 3,229 metres of reverse circulation (RC) and 407.6 metres of diamond core drilling. The drilling produced significant results from several prospects including Bulletin South, Excelsior and Zoroastrian; highlights of these results are detailed in Table 1.

In January 2004 Nickelore acquired the Bardoc South tenure, which encompasses the southern extension of the Aphrodite Deposit (892,000 oz gold) and the immediate northern extension of the Broad Arrow Gold Mines ( 600,000 oz gold). This combined with the additional 63,000 oz of gold resources has significantly enhanced the Company’s gold assets.

Similarly, Nickelore has conducted a detailed analysis of the Bardoc South area to delineate structurally controlled, high-grade gold targes for drill testing. A total of 7.094 metres of RAB, 1,081 metres of RC and 830 metres of aircore drilling was subsequently completed. This work resulted in a number of significant results from the Big Blow, Jackorite and Nerrin Nerrin prospects, highlights of which are detailed in Table 1.

Table 1: Significant assay results from drilling at the Bardoc Project for the year ended 30 June 2004

Note: All RC intersections are derived from 1 metre samples that have been riffled split and analysed by fire assay. Diamond Core intersections are derived from lithologically dependent sample lenths that have been cut in half and analysed by fire assay.

Due to the focus on Nickel Sulphide exploration only 2 small gold drilling programs (for 483 metres of rotary air blast (RAB) and 201 metres of RC drilling) were completed last year but without significant results.

Nevertheless, the Nickel drilling did often go through areas of known and unknown gold potential at depths previously untested. The result was that significant values were intersected at the basal contact that was often represented by a chert horizon that when in-filled with porphyry was often mineralised as showing in HNIC001 and HNIC013 in Table 2. In the other case for HNIC019 and HNIC022, high grade gold was intersected in new gold trends (North-North-East) within the footwall basalt that had not been previously recognised at Bardoc.

Regionally, the project sits on such a structural corridor (Black Flag Fault) which is an important determinant for deposits at Kundana ( 5Mozs) and Mount Pleasant ( 3Mozs). Consequently, these prospects have now become priority drill targets for Nickelore.

Table 2: Significant Gold results from drilling at the Bardoc Project for the year ended 30 June 2005

Note: All RC intersections are derived from 1 metre samples that have been riffled split and analysed by fire assay, except for HNIC022 where the samples were done by the Leachwell method using a 1kg change.