Red Metal is gearing up for an intense period of exploration across north-west Queensland, with separate drilling programs set to kick off at three of its projects in the coming month.
Initial investigative drill campaigns at the company’s Gidyea copper-gold and Lawn Hill silver-lead-zinc projects will be launched to test the significant base metals potential of the anticipated large-scale mineralisation types. It will also conduct infill drilling at its flagship Sybella rare earths play, focusing on an anticipated huge maiden resource definition and metallurgical testing, which is critical to Red Metal as it moves toward mining studies and strategic discussions with end-users.
The initial programs at Gidyea and Lawn Hill will be supported by $390,000 in additional funding from the Queensland Government. The company has also launched a share purchase program to existing shareholders, offering them the chance to buy up to $2 million in additional stock.
Red Metal managing director Rob Rutherford said: “We're thrilled about the upcoming drilling programs on these three exceptional projects, any one of which has the potential to significantly transform Red Metal.”
The Gidyea project lies within the established copper-gold terrain of Cloncurry in north-west Queensland and offers noteworthy promise for large-scale iron oxide-copper-gold (IOCG) breccia systems akin to the money-printing Ernest Henry copper-gold mine nearby.
Red Metal’s extensive gravity surveys have highlighted a standout gravity anomaly, signalling what the company says is a “must-drill” copper-gold target, which will be the first-priority cab off the ranks.
At the Lawn Hill project, the company is preparing to drill a high-priority stratigraphic gravity target named Bluebush, which it believes has all the hallmarks of a significant sediment-hosted silver-lead-zinc deposit.
More than 40 historic drillholes at the project have confirmed the presence of zinc and lead mineralisation, with the upcoming program set to examine the 4.6km-long Bluebush gravity anomaly.
Red Metal believes the target also has large-scale mineralisation potential using the analogue of a giant Century-style silver-lead-zinc deposit.
The Century zinc deposit was a huge sediment-hosted and predominantly zinc deposit that ran at nearly 10 per cent zinc. It went on to become Australia’s biggest open cut zinc mine located outside of Lawn Hill, 250km north-west of Mount Isa.
Mining kicked-off in 1999 and continued until 2015, producing a pit some 2.5km in length in the neighbouring region to Red Metals’ target of the same name.
And last but not least, a low-cost infill drilling program to unlock the massive resource potential at Red Metal’s flagship Sybella rare earth project near Mount Isa will kick off next month. The company recently uncovered an 8km-by-3km rare earths zone at Sybella that featured strong shows for all four magnet rare earths –neodymium, praseodymium, dysprosium and terbium.
Within the massive discovery were two high-grade zones management plans to target with its upcoming infill drilling. The highest-grade Eastern zone extends for more than 4.8km along strike and has a width of up to 1.5km, with the second 7.2km-long Western zone comprising widths that vary from 400m to more than 1.6km.
It is a huge area of resource potential that could push out of the millions and into the billions of tonnes. The upcoming resource definition drilling will also facilitate ongoing metallurgical work, accelerating the pathway towards the mining studies and discussions with potential end-users.
The company says the granite-hosted soft ore that appears to be abundant in its ground can offer simple crushing and processing options that are expected to provide an economic edge to the project. Scale and metallurgy to date suggests Sybella could be a heap leach-viable mining option – a proven, highly-viable large-scale mining technique that is expected to support a low-capex start-up and low-operating cost pathway.
Red Metal has not been shy in past months in describing its promising project as both “globally unique” and a “metallurgical nirvana”, believing rare earths extraction is “all about the ore”.
With drilling at three projects set to begin imminently, the company is entering a key period of its development. And its commitment to unlocking the huge resource potential at Sybella, alongside the base-metal upside at Gidyea and Lawn Hill, could well be rewarded with substantial returns from each operation.
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By Andrew Todd
