Ramp Metals: First drill holes at Rottenstone SW nickel-copper project already completed!

The team at Ramp Metals (TSXV RAMP / WKN A407UW) doesn’t do things by halves: As announced to Goldinvest.de at PDAC 2024 (video interview here), CEO Jordan Black’s company has commenced drilling just a few days after its successful listing in Toronto. And as was announced today, four drill holes have already been completed!

In a technical report on Ramp’s Rottenstone SW property, various geophysical surveys were recommended. These included time domain airborne geophysical measurements (TDEM), soil sampling and interpretation of the geophysical measurements to generate drill targets. Ramp already completed this work in 2023.

Interestingly, this geophysical data revealed strong similarities between a particular structure on Rottenstone SW – the “Rottenstone Eye” – and the Nova Eye structure that Dr. Mark Bennett, then working at Sirius Resources, had discovered in Western Australia. Dr. Bennett went on to lead the development of the resulting Nova-Bollinger nickel and copper mine and Sirius Resources was eventually acquired for A$1.8 billion…

Promising drilling targets generated

In any case, the completed exploration program delivered favorable overall results, so the Ramp team decided to initiate an initial drill program to better understand the underground geology of the property. A total of four high priority drill targets have been generated of which the company is initially testing two, which are located close to surface.

The first target is an anomaly in the middle of the Rottenstone SW claims and lies within the Rottenstone Eye structure. The second drill target is an anomaly outside the Rottenstone Eye structure, which, according to Ramp, is located around 3 kilometers east-southeast of the first site. Four drill holes have been successfully completed with a total length of 1,180 meters and the drill cores are currently being processed in a company facility to send to the lab for analysis.

On trend with a historic nickel and copper mine

The Rottenstone SW property itself is located in the north of the Canadian province of Saskatchewan around 115 kilometers north of the town of La Ronge. It consists of 12 claims covering a total area of 17,285 hectares. The project area is located along a regional structure running from northeast to southwest, which also includes the historic Rottenstone mine. There, 40,000 tons of high-grade nickel, copper and platinum group elements as well as gold were mined. The grades were a strong 3.28% nickel, 1.83% copper and 9.63 g/t platinum-palladium-gold at the time.

Conclusion: Given this exciting starting position, it is hardly surprising that the Ramp Metals team has started drilling at Rottenstone SW as quickly, if not more quickly, than announced. At the same time, however, it is good to see that the newly listed company is following up its words with actions so quickly. The great similarity between Rottenstone and Nova-Eye is also reinforced by the fact that the discoverer of Nova-Eye, Dr. Mark Bennett, is now on board at Ramp Metals as a strategic advisor. Yes, Ramp is still in the early stages of exploring Rottenstone SW and yes, the risk is still high as is usual for explorers at this early stage. But in our view, these are also the opportunities should the company hit the bullseye with its drilling. We will definitely stay tuned!