Bulls N’ Bears Big Hits takes a look at notable drill intercepts recently reported to the ASX last week, led by BMC Minerals and followed by Caspin Resources and Barton Gold, with results spanning silver-rich base metals, hard-rock tin and shallow gold.
BMC Minerals (ASX: BMC)
Project: Kudz Ze Kayah project (Krakatoa zone, ABM deposit), Yukon, Canada
Hit: 25.1m at 180g/t silver, 9.7 per cent zinc, 3.4 per cent lead, 1.0g/t gold and 0.3 per cent copper from 327.5m.
BMC Minerals has taken top Big Hits billing this week after reaming out a thick, high-grade massive sulphide intercept at its 100 per cent owned Kudz Ze Kayah (KZK) project in Canada’s Yukon.
The drilling program mobilised in early February with a 20,000m drilling program planned for 2026.
The headline hit came from the company’s first hole to test its priority Krakatoa zone immediately southeast of and adjacent to the company’s bigger ABM deposit.
Initial focus on Krakatoa has been directed towards increasing the size of and confidence in the Krakatoa mineral resource. It will also embrace other high-priority targets within 5km of the proposed ABM mine to extend mine life.
The Krakatoa zone extends over an estimated 200m of strike, is up to 22m thick and extends for at least 500m down-dip. The zone currently comprises shallow indicated base metals, gold and silver resources of 3.5 million tonnes and shallow inferred resources of 0.1Mt, with additional deeper indicated and inferred resources of 0.2Mt and 0.4Mt respectively.
This first hole has confirmed the presence of thick high-grade mineralisation, with an impressive 25.1m intercept assaying 180 grams per tonne (g/t) silver, 9.7 per cent zinc, 3.4 per cent lead, 1.0g/t gold and 0.3 per cent copper from 327.5m, for a true width of 19.8m.
The latest result reinforces the company’s belief that Krakatoa hosts thick, high-grade mineralisation which extends beyond the company’s current ore reserves for the adjacent ABM deposit and potentially remains open down-plunge to the north.
The results indicate that Krakatoa could have a meaningful role in contributing additional tonnes to BMC’s plans for the ABM mine, thereby extending the life of the overall KZK project.
This has also shifted the company’s perception of Krakatoa, which, while initially seen as distinct, is increasingly being assessed in the context of a potentially enlarged ABM deposit.
The JORC-compliant October 2023 reserves estimate for the ABM deposit stands at a combined total of 15.7 million tonnes (Mt) of probable open-pit and underground ore at grades of 0.9 per cent copper, 1.7 per cent lead, 5.8 per cent zinc, 1.3 g/t gold and 138g/t silver, of which 14Mt is estimated within the open pit at similar grades.
The company’s flagship KZK project comprises 372 square kilometres of highly prospective, underexplored mineral tenure, which BMC has committed to appraising over the next 12 months.
The area encloses eight mineral properties of which the most advanced are the KZK property centred on the ABM deposit and the separate Pelly property immediately adjacent to the now shuttered Wolverine mine.
Other priority properties on the burner include the separate Kona and Wolf properties situated on two deposits of the same names. The Kona property also contains a combined indicated and inferred resource of 6.7Mt grading 1.7 per cent copper, 0.6g/t gold and 4g/t silver.
BMC is already drilling a follow-up hole about 200m further down-dip at Krakatoa to test the lens at depth. At the same time, more work is slated for other prospects within the KZK project, including the nearby GP4F, Fuego and Rhyolite Peak priority prospects, through the field season.
Those prospects all lie within 5km of the ABM-Krakatoa duo and could conceivably become satellite ore sources for a processing hub at the proposed ABM mine.
With its 19.8m true width calculated from the known lens geometry, BMC’s recent big hit has moved the focus onto establishing repeatability and strike-and-dip continuity at Krakatoa as more assays arrive from early holes in the campaign.
The company is proposing mining, construction and mineral processing centred on its polymetallic volcanic-hosted massive sulphide (VHMS) ABM deposit, which contains economic concentrations of zinc, silver, copper, gold and lead.
Over the last 10 years, more than US$150 million (A$207M) has been invested in the project, making it uniquely advanced. With a 9-year estimated mine life, the ABM mine project is expected to become Canada’s largest silver and zinc producer and a Top-15 copper producer.
The ABM mine could also find itself among one of five mines globally, with the potential to rank among both the world’s top 25 zinc producers and top 20 silver producers.
BMC Minerals ABM mine project is the first proposed development project by the company in the northern Pelly Mountains, 115km southeast of Ross River in south-central Yukon, Canada. Credit: File
Caspin Resources (ASX: CPN)
Project: Bygoo tin project (Kelpie deposit), New South Wales
Hit: 13m at 1.16% tin from 103m, including 2m at 2.94% tin from 106m.
Caspin Resources has landed second place in this week’s Big Hits line-up after reporting a high-grade hard-rock tin intercept at its Bygoo project in southern NSW’s prolific Wagga tin belt, with the standout intercept comfortably clearing the widely watched 1 per cent “high-grade” threshold for cassiterite-hosted tin systems.
The project surrounds the historic Ardlethan mine, which was one of Australia’s largest producing tin mines on mainland Australia before it closed in 1986.
Significant intersections from the first 11 holes include the headline hole with 13m at 1.16 per cent tin from 103m, including 2m at a whopping 2.94 per cent tin from 106m.
The second best hit to date gave up 24m at 0.50 per cent tin from 153m, while third place went to a 17m intercept going 0.45 per cent tin from 39m, including 5m at 0.95 per cent tin from 45m.
The results were obtained from Caspin’s 2026 reverse-circulation (RC) extension drilling campaign at its Kelpie deposit, a program designed to build mineralisation beyond its recently announced maiden inferred resource estimate of 3.94Mt at 0.5 per cent tin for 19,300 tonnes of contained tin, which the company says is “limited only by drilling”.
The contained tin is significant for the deposit’s current modest scale, as well as its high grade and shallow, open-pit mining depths.
Caspin has drilled 30 holes for an estimated 5400m at Kelpie so far, with assays received for the first 11 holes, which have returned tin mineralisation in every hole and multiple intersections beyond the current resource envelope, extending the system up- and down-plunge.
Managing director Greg Miles says the company’s initial focus has been on the under-drilled Stewarts Fault area, where its previous drilling had not tested. He believes the zone has excellent potential for substantial resource growth, supported by its return of the highest-grade intercept to date along that structure.
The hit is significant because the Stewarts Fault area had previously delivered only broad, lower-grade mineralisation.
The first holes were designed to target mineralisation perpendicular to the contact between the Ardlethan Granite and the rhyolite-porphyry contact. However, following the results of a recent induced potential (IP) geophysical survey, it is now recognised that mineralisation is likely to be partly or wholly controlled by NE-SW-trending faults intersecting the granite contact.
The company says results from its IP survey have provided a significant advancement in understanding the geology and mineralisation at Kelpie and it has already modified its drilling plan accordingly.
The survey identified many previously unrecognised faults which the company believe could represent mineralised fluid pathways, some of which have now been targeted in drilling.
In addition to the drilling at Kelpie, Caspin has also drilled 7 holes for an estimated 1100m at Ardlethan East, before sending the rig back to Kelpie to continue its exploration and extension drilling.
The drilling program has been extended beyond the initial planned 5000m and is expected to continue into late May, while results from 26 holes, including those at Ardlethan East, are awaited.
After a successful outcome to its first IP survey, the company has launched a second survey to extend its IP coverage 1000m to the west and north, while a gravity survey has also been completed to map bedrock geology, with emphasis on the prospective granite contact.
Barton Gold (ASX: BGD)
Project: Challenger gold project (Challenger West open pit), South Australia
Hit: 3m at 20.6g/t gold from 13m, including 1m at 59.5g/t gold from 15m.
Barton Gold rounds out our Big Hits selection after reporting shallow, high-grade assays from the floor of its Challenger West (CW) open pit at the company’s Challenger gold project in South Australia, pointing to potential “easy access” mill feed.
The CW zone is a small satellite pit on the southwest margin of the Challenger ‘Main’ open pit and contains a smaller volume of narrow, but high-grade, shallow mineralisation.
The standout hit of 3m grading 20.6g/t gold from 13m, including a spectacular 1m at 59.5g/t from 15m, came from Barton Gold Holdings Limited’s recently completed 8065m reverse circulation resource upgrade drilling campaign at Challenger.
The program targeted the Main and Challenger West open pits, alongside the Challenger South-Southwest and Challenger 3 prospects, as the company pushes to grow and upgrade its gold inventory.
An adjacent parallel hole delivered 7m assaying 2.01g/t gold from surface in the weathered – or oxide – zone and included a 1m going a handy 9.63g/t gold from only 6 metres depth.
A third deeper step-back hole that ran to a maximum downhole depth of 48m returned a short but significant intercept of 1m grading 12.5g/t from 28m depth, well into fresh rock and close to but outside the current inferred resource.
Managing director Alexander Scanlon says the newly-identified near-surface high-grade mineralisation in the immediate floor of the Challenger West pit can be accessed by simple excavation to supplement other Challenger feed sources and lift the overall mill-feed grade profile.
Eight months ago Barton published its Challenger JORC (2012) mineral resource estimate of 313,000 ounces of gold from a 10.6 million tonnes resource grading 0.92g/t gold, all within two kilometres of the company’s Central Gawler Mill (CGM).
Multiple lodes at Challenger, dubbed M1, M2, M3, SEZ and CW, comprise discrete zones of underground mineralisation at depth which link up with the existing open pits.
The latest results indicate potential to consider elongation of the Challenger West open pit to pursue near-surface extensions of the shallow mineralisation. As with recent high-grade assays from the Challenger ‘Main’ pit’s M3-SEZ zone, Barton will consider opportunities for future follow-up drilling to extend prospective mining inventories.
The company is running a definitive feasibility study (DFS) aimed at a simplified three to four-year, stage-one “baseline” operation to underwrite a restart of its fully permitted CGM. The development would initially exploit only historical higher-grade tailings from the tailings storage facility and limited, near-surface materials. This process could be undertaken without disturbing Challenger’s historical high-grade underground mine, its mineralisation or its infrastructure access.
The study could also assist in exploring the company’s best options to maximise the development of its stable of regional Tarcoola, Tolmer and Wudinna projects, which could also be processed through the CGM.
Tarcoola features an estimated 20,000 ounces of gold in a fully permitted open pit, while Tolmer has come up with grades of up to 84g/t gold and a seriously weighty 17,600g/t silver.
Additionally, the company’s Tunkillia gold project contains 1.6 million ounces of gold and 3.1 million ounces of silver in JORC-compliant mineral resources. In contrast, its Wudinna gold project, southeast of Tunkillia, contains an estimated 279,000 ounces of gold.
The latest results from Challenger West build on Barton’s earlier Challenger ‘Main’ pit update, which has also highlighted new high-grade mineralisation in open-pit walls and extensions, with assays up to 170g/t gold and a separate deeper 9m at 2.2g/t gold from 97m, including 1m at 6.63g/t.
With more assays pending across additional open-pit targets, Barton will now look to refine its modelling and pit optimisation around these higher-grade zones and find a way to deliver as much of its significant combined gold-silver resources as possible to its CGM processing hub.
Is your ASX-listed company doing something interesting? Contact: matt.birney@businessnews.com.au
By Doug Bright
