Perseverance logs 1% nickel at Lac Gayot in Quebec

Critical minerals explorer Perseverance Metals (TSXV: PMI) said new drilling at the polymetallic Lac Gayot project in northern Quebec showed continuous mineralization over a significant area.

Hole NAS-25-001 in the recently discovered Nasique zone cut 12 metres grading 1.02% nickel, 0.08% copper, 0.02% cobalt, 0.25 gram per tonne palladium, 0.09 gram platinum and 0.06 gram gold from 17 metres depth, Perseverance said Tuesday in a statement. This included 6.25 metres of 1.33% nickel, 0.12% copper, 0.02% cobalt and 0.35 gram palladium.

Vancouver-based Perseverance is planning to carry out about 5,000 metres of drilling at Lac Gayot this year – about the same as in 2025 – to follow up on key zones intersected last year. All nine holes whose results were released Tuesday cut magmatic sulphides, Perseverance said.

“I am excited by the Nasique zone, as it represents a discovery process spearheaded by the Lac Gayot team that emphasized the importance of thinking outside of the box, even in an established belt,” CEO Michael Tucker said.

“The process started with examining all of the data and formulating a hypothesis that this Upper Komatiite Sequence had high potential to host magmatic Ni-sulphide mineralization. Ground prospecting of this area then led to a new discovery of a disseminated style of mineralization never before seen on the property, in a package of rocks where no nickel sulphide had previously been discovered.”

Other recent holes returned similar intervals of nickel-dominated sulphide mineralization over true thicknesses that remain under technical review, Perseverance said.

Greenstone belt

Lac Gayot covers the 30 km-long Venus greenstone belt, which features multiple, very high-grade nickel, copper, cobalt and platinum group elements showings and zones along with numerous large spodumene-bearing pegmatites with high lithium grades.

Perseverance is planning to conduct a high-resolution survey for the Venus East trend this year with a goal of expanding the mineralized zone. Follow-up drilling will be directed at testing Nasique’s expansion potential and focusing on portions with higher sulphide content.

Nasique, which has been documented to over 60 metres of strike length and to about 90 metres of vertical depth, remains open in all directions, Perseverance said. This makes it one of the more continuous zones of mineralization discovered so far on the 170-sq.-km property.

Located more than 1,000 km north of Montreal, Lac Gayot is one of three sites that Perseverance is looking to develop. The others are the polymetallic Voyageur project in Michigan and the Armit Lake nickel-copper-cobalt project in Ontario’s Savant Lake greenstone belt.

Perseverance shares rose 2.8% to 73¢ Tuesday morning in Toronto, giving the company a market value of about $21 million (US$15 million). The stock has traded between 40¢ and 90¢ in the past year.