The successful completion of a two-stage six-hole drill programme completed in 2017 on URU Metals’ Limpopo-based Zebediela nickel/platinum group element (PGE) project has resulted in mineralised intersections that exceeded the company's expectations.

The company said in an update on Wednesday that the outcome from the drill programme resulted in an average grade of 0.44% nickel and 1.85 g/t PGE at a depth of between 28 m and 176 m below surface over an average thickness of 4.2 m.

''This next phase of work on the Zebediela project has been planned to maximise the chances of successfully intersecting nickel/PGE mineralisation, allowing us to gain a better understanding of the geology and potentially extending the mineralised zone along strike, with the ultimate goal of defining a shallow high-value nickel deposit with significant PGE credits," URU CEO John Zorbas said in a statement.

Ground-based geophysics with a follow-up soil geochemistry and six-hole diamond drilling programme are planned and will form the next step in expanding the exploration results into a nickel/PGE resource at Zebediela.

It is anticipated that the geophysics programme will start in August.

The programme will comprise a time domain induced polarisation and resistivity plus ground magnetometer survey and will assist with the accurate placement of further planned exploration drill holes.

The primary aim of the survey is to map polarisable, sheet-like disseminated sulphide bodies, potentially hosting nickel and PGE in pentlandite and chalcopyrite mineralisation in the rocks of the Bushveld Complex, which is host to the world's largest PGE resources.

The locations of the lines are based on the extrapolated strike extent of the recently defined mineralisation, as well as co-incident copper/chrome/cobalt soil anomalies, a useful vector in targeting nickel/PGE mineralisation.

A multi-element soil geochemistry survey and a six-hole diamond exploration drilling campaign will begin once the results from the geophysics programme have been fully reported.