Neometals Limited is ramping up exploration and development activities across its wholly owned Barrambie project in Western Australia's Mid West as it pursues a twin-track strategy to unlock the project's copper and gold potential.
Its immediate focus is a suite of high-priority targets generated from recent geophysical surveys and drilling programs, with work designed to expand known mineralisation and assess new discovery opportunities across the emerging multi-commodity asset.
The company will kick off drilling by testing out a sizeable copper target at its Rinaldi prospect before probing for extensions to its Ironclad gold deposit.
The eight-hole, 1150-metre reverse-circulation (RC) program will comprise three holes at Rinaldi in the southern part of the Barrambie tenure and five holes at Ironclad, 14 kilometres to the northwest.
At Rinaldi, Neometals plans to drill a strong, coincident chargeability and resistivity anomaly 700m northeast of the historic copper workings. The target emerged from an induced-polarisation (IP) geophysical survey completed in April, which outlined three potentially significant copper targets.
The inclined ovoid anomaly was ranked as the highest-priority prospect from the survey. Its core is centred just 110m below surface and extends more than 200m laterally and at least 300m vertically.
Management believes the feature could represent sulphide mineralisation similar to that seen at other nearby copper deposits within the Barrambie Greenstone Belt.
Rinaldi sits within the same geological sequence and along strike from Solstice Minerals' Nanadie copper project, which hosts an inferred resource of 40.4 million tonnes grading 0.4 per cent copper and 0.1 grams per tonne (g/t) gold. Neometals says the geological similarities highlight the broader copper potential of the district.
The company has already demonstrated the presence of high-grade copper mineralisation beneath the historic workings through recent drilling, which returned 7m at 1.72 per cent copper and 25.9g/t silver from 82m, and 5m at 1.26 per cent copper and 20.8g/t silver from 75m.
Historic mining at Rinaldi produced 138 tonnes of copper at an average grade of 9.8 per cent, providing further evidence of a fertile mineralised system. While the copper hot spots offer considerable exploration upside, Neometals is also advancing its Ironclad gold deposit towards development.
Neometals managing director Chris Reed said: “We are excited to resume drilling at Barrambie to test our first coincident geophysical anomaly as well as extensions to the Rinaldi copper mineralisation, in addition to extensions to the existing Ironclad gold Mineral Resource Estimate. Ironclad pre-production activities are continuing to progress, and we look forward to updating shareholders as we move towards a Final Investment Decision.”
Ironclad hosts an indicated and inferred mineral resource of 15,000 ounces of gold, with a March scoping study outlining the potential to produce between 10,000 and 11,000 ounces from a planned open-pit operation.
The upcoming five-hole drilling program at Ironclad will test interpreted down-plunge extensions of higher-grade mineralisation beneath the existing resource, with the results likely to assist mine planning for a proposed starter pit.
Neometals is progressing approvals for the planned development and expects a native title agreement and state deed to be completed in September, paving the way for grant of a mining lease. Under an existing agreement, mining services partner BML Ventures is expected to fund and undertake grade-control drilling ahead of a final development decision.
Barrambie is best known for hosting one of the world's highest-grade titanium deposits, with an estimated resource base of 280.1 million tonnes grading 9.18 per cent titanium dioxide and 0.44 per cent vanadium pentoxide.
However, after more than two decades of limited exploration while management focused on other ventures, the company is increasingly turning its attention to the project's gold and copper potential.
With drilling set to resume and key development milestones approaching at Ironclad, Neometals will be hoping the coming weeks provide further evidence that Barrambie's copper and gold assets can emerge as meaningful contributors alongside its globally significant titanium holdings.
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By Doug Bright
