Why is the Chalice Mining share price racing higher today?

The Chalice Mining Ltd (ASX: CHN) share price is surging in morning trade on Friday.

At one point during the day, Chalice had surged more than 7% into the green, before settling down to its current levels of less than 1% higher at $4.02.

Investors might be bidding up the Chalice Mining share price in response to a company announcement regarding its Julimar nickel-copper-platinum group element (PGE) project in WA.

What did Chalice Mining announce?

The company reported an updated mineral resource estimated for the Gonneville Deposit that is located on the Julimar PGE project.

Chalice says that since it reported its first maiden resource estimated in November 2021, it has focused on shallow infill drilling at Gonneville.

It's done this "to improve the confidence level of the resource from the Inferred category to Indicated".

"The proportion of Indicated category resources has increased from approximately 45% to approximately 70% of the total," it said.

"The drilling and remodelling has resulted in a ~5% increase in the Resource mass and contained nickel
equivalent metal relative to the maiden estimate."

Chalice reckons the increase boils down to a number of factors, including an increase in the resource shell pit size and the updating of pit optimisation parameters.

Drilling is also pushing ahead at a deposit located outside of the resource. Assays are currently pending for 90 drill holes there.

Management commentary

Speaking on the announcement, Chalice CEO, Alex Dorsch said work to date at Gonneville had shown its "world-class endowment, scale and quality".

Apart from further increasing the contained metal, this Resource update has resulted in a significant
increase in the higher-confidence Indicated Resource – which now represents approximately 70% of the total.

Importantly, 90% of the resource above a depth of 250m is now classified as Indicated, which
represents a major de-risking step for the Project.

Chalice CEO, Alex Dorsch

In the last 12 months, the Chalice Mining share price has slipped more than 44% into the red.