Sipa kicks off drilling at second project in a month

With a swag of drill results from two exciting projects on two different continents due out over the next few weeks, ASX punters will no doubt be watching Sipa Resources closely with one hand on the buy button.

With drill results pending from their exciting new Patterson North copper-gold project in W.A, Sipa Resources this week will start a new phase of drilling at the Akelikongo prospect in Uganda, a significant nickel-copper sulphide discovery.

A lot of eyes will be watching the new drill program, which is designed to extend a previously identified zone of massive sulphides by a further 250 metres.

The program comprises about 2000 metres of RC drilling and up to 750 metres of diamond drilling and follows a highly successful RC program completed in May.

If results are positive, the next step will be a downhole EM survey followed by a program of diamond drilling in early 2017.

Akelikongo is part of Sipa’s Kitgum-Pader project and is located in one of the world’s wildest geological frontiers. Regional maps published for the first time just a few years ago showed striking similarities with the world’s best nickel-copper sulphide areas, including the Albany-Fraser Range, and Sipa was quick to move in.

The innovative junior’s faith has been rewarded with the discovery of an extensive nickel-copper system, with bonus cobalt credits, a metal in hot demand due to the global boom in lithium-ion batteries.

The previous phase of drilling returned the highest grades to date, including 1% nickel and 0.22% copper at shallow depths over 10 meters.

Very wide intercepts of disseminated metals including 119 metres at 0.14% nickel and 0.12% copper were also previously encountered.

The drilling program also provided strong leads as to where to find massive, higher grade sulphides at Akelikongo and testing these theories is one of the key objectives of the new drilling program.

Sipa now has drill programs underway at both Uganda and at its exciting Paterson North copper-gold project north of Telfer.

At Patterson North up to 10,000 metres of aircore drilling will target a large copper-gold-bismith anomaly known as the Obelisk prospect, immediately north of Antipa-Rio’s Magnum and Citadel copper-gold projects.

Exploration activity is well funded after a flood of applications to oversubscribed Sipa’s recent share purchase plan which boosted  cash reserves to about $5.7 million.