TORONTO (miningweekly.com) – Toronto- and New York-listed Platinum Group Metals (PTM) has doubled the strike length at its Waterberg platinum resource discovery located north of the known northern limb of South Africa’s Bushveld Igneous Complex (BIC).

The Waterberg mineralisation represents an important new area of South Africa’s BIC, which is responsible for about 70% of the world’s platinum production.

Vancouver-based PTM on Monday announced new drill intercepts had doubled the strike length of the Waterberg discovery to about 5.5 km.

The latest results included 24 m grading 4.32 g/t of platinum, palladium and gold (2E+Au) within a larger intercept of 58 m of 2.98 g/t 2E+Au. Results also included 11.5 m grading 7.18 g/t 2E+Au and 8.5 m of 4.8 g/t 2E+Au.

The company said the new F-layer intercepts were located on strike to the north of the area where the company in September announced a maiden inferred resource of 6.6-million 2E+Au ounces. The grade-thickness on the F-layers was also reported to be increasing as exploration progressed to the north.

The initial inferred mineral resource estimate of 6.6-million ounces covers an area of about 2.5-million square meters with 3.7-million inferred ounces on the F-layers. The current intercepts provided a significant increase in the target area for high-grade thickness platinum mineralisation.

The T-mineralised layers come to about 140 m from surface in the initial resource area and the T-layers are expected to be to the west of the new F-layer intercepts. The T-layers remained open for further drilling and resource definition along strike and down-dip and add to the target scale.

The T-layers had been intercepted to 1 375 m deep in the main resource area and below it. The earlier resource estimate cut off the mineralisation using preliminary potential economic considerations, at a depth of 1 km.

The added potential scale of the deposit from the current drilling may result in the company reconsidering this cut-off depth, as the larger scale would affect the potential economic considerations positively.

However, PTM said the focus of continued exploration would be on near-surface mineralisation.

The company’s share price rose by 4.12% to C$1.01 a share on the TSX on Monday.