Transition Metals up 63% on PGM results

Transition Metals Corp. [XTM-TSXV; TNTMF-OTC] shares rallied sharply Monday April 29 after the company said it has received assay results from a previously disclosed drill program conducted by North American Palladium Ltd. [PDL-TSX; PALDF-OTC] on the Sunday Lake platinum-palladium project in northern Ontario.

Transition Metals reacted to the news by jumping 63.2% or $0.06 to 15.5 cents on volume of almost 2.8 million. The shares trade in a 52-week range of $0.06 and 16 cents. North American Palladium shares eased 6% or $0.77 to $12, and trade in a 52-week range of $8.62 and $26.30.

Sunday Lake is located 25 km north of Thunder Bay and approximately 95 km south of North American Palladium’s producing Lac Des Iles Mine. The property covers a 3.5-km diameter circular reversely polarized magnetic anomaly associated with a large buried mafic-ultramafic intrusion, which is interpreted to be Proterozoic in age and related to the Mid-Continental Rift.

North American Palladium holds an option to earn a 75% interest in the property from Impala Platinum Holdings Ltd. and Transition holds a 25% free carried interest through to the completion of a feasibility study.

The project is focused on recently discovered platinum-group metal deposits hosted by the Sunday Lake mafic-ultramafic intrusion. Drilling completed prior to North American Palladium’s involvement had delineated a laterally extensive zone of disseminated magmatic sulfide mineralization along the base of the Sunday Lake Intrusion (SLI) within the eastern part of the intrusion.

In 2018, North American Palladium’s first drilling program extended the mineralization into the centre of the SLI. In mid-April, the company completed its second drill program at Sunday Lake. Results from the initial program are reported in a March 27, 2018 news release. So far in 2019, the company has further extended the mineralization to the western side of the SLI. New drilling results suggest that the mineralization is a relatively thick continuous blanket that extends across the width of the intrusion.

Highlights from the latest drill results include Hole SL-19-026, which targeted the strongest conductivity anomaly in the western part of the intrusion. It returned the highest grade multi-metre intersection reported to date. The main intersection is 41.2 metres with 3.22 g/t platinum, 2.08 g/t palladium, 0.21 g/t gold, 0.57% copper, and 0.19% nickel.

Included in this interval is a 15.8-metre section containing 9.11 g/t combined platinum+palladium, and gold concentrations (3E), with 0.88% copper and 0.24% nickel. That section contains an 8.30-metre sub-interval, grading 13.06 g/t 3E, 1.23% copper and 0.32% nickel.

“We are encouraged by the higher PGM grades and base metal sulfide contents observed in drill hole SL-19-026 from the newly discovered western extension of the Sunday Lake PGM mineralization,” said North American Palladium’s vice-president, exploration. “The new drill results prove the effectiveness of advanced geophysical methods in detecting this mineralization at significant depths,” he said. “We have continued to identify promising geophysical targets that warrant testing in the next phase of drilling.”