Venture signs Orogenic JV for IOCGU rights to tenement

Subiaco-based mineral explorers Venture Minerals Ltd will spend $750,000 on a joint venture with Melbourne-based Orogenic Exploration Pty Ltd to acquire mineral rights to a Iron-oxide-Copper-Gold-Uranium tenement next to its Churchill Dam project.

The full text of a company announcement is pasted below

Australian based mineral exploration company Venture Minerals Limited (ASX code: VMS) has signed a Joint Venture agreement with Orogenic Exploration Pty Ltd (Orogenic) to acquire a tenement adjacent to its Churchill Dam Iron-oxide-Copper-Gold-Uranium (IOCGU) project in South Australia.

This 471km2 tenement contains a number of drill targets that complement those already identified on the tenement held by Venture. As part of the agreement Venture will earn a 90% interest in the nondiamond rights of the tenement by spending A$750,000 over the next three years.

Orogenic will receive an initial payment of $11,000 and will be free carried up to the decision to mine, and may then elect to contribute or take a payment of $500,000 and 1.5% of the net smelter return.

Orogenic retains all diamond rights to the tenement.

The new acquisition contains a number of drill target areas within the tenement and following a review of geological data has lead to the identification of a number of new drill target areas within the original tenement held by Venture, all of which are prospective for IOCGU type mineralisation as based on the highly successful drilling done to date at Churchill Dam (see attached map).

By applying the same principles previously used in interpreting a "caldera" (large volcanic crater-style structure) within the Gawler Range Volcanics at Churchill Dam, an adjoining second caldera feature can be interpreted to be sitting to the northeast and within the area of the new acquisition.

Consequently, the Company will now further extend its detailed ground based geophysical survey (due to commence shortly) to cover the new additional drill targets and the interpreted second caldera structure.

This announcement follows last week's confirmation that Venture Minerals had arranged a placement of 6.5 million ordinary shares in the Company to raise $2,145,000.

The funds raised will be used for exploration at Venture's existing tenement at Churchill Dam. The Company has recently drilled two RC/Diamond holes into the project, both intersecting at least 150m of altered Gawler Range Volcanics.

The Company believes the brecciation and alteration style intersected in the first two holes is consistent with mineralised IOCGU systems within the Olympic Dam province of South Australia. Assay results on the first two holes are pending.

The success from the first two holes have encouraged the Company to proceed with an aggressive four - eight hole program of diamond drilling at the project expected to cost up to $2m.

Venture Mineral's Churchill Dam Project is well situated within the Olympic Dam IOCGU province, approximately 95km west of the recently discovered Carrapateena Prospect, 100km northwest of the recently discovered Punt Hill Prospect and 90km southwest of the world class Olympic Dam Mine.