Page 52 - pd297-Sept21-mag-web

eURoPe focUs

Conico gets early sniff of sulphide

in Greenland

onico Ltd has enjoyed immediate suc- Abraham James, the UK-based geologist “The mineralisation is being intersected at
Ccess on its maiden drilling campaign in who formed Longland, we realised the chal- depths of 80-320m so they are reasonably
Greenland, with all three holes drilled into lenges could be overcome. quick holes and we have three rigs drilling
the Miki copper-nickel prospect returning “He has been working in Greenland since constantly because it is 24-hour sunlight at
sulphides. 2008 and when everyone backed out a few the moment.”
The holes were the first drilled at Miki – years ago he put Longland together and A down-hole EM survey of the first hole
part of the wider Ryberg project – and had picked up the ground, did the preliminary drilled into Miki showed an area of magnet-
targeted geophysical and surface sampling work and moved the projects up the curve.” ism to the north at around 115m down-hole.
anomalies identified in 2017 and 2020. With more than a decade under his belt The fourth and fifth holes of the programme
Conico chairman Greg Solomon de- in the semi-autonomous jurisdiction, James are targeting this off-hole conductor.
clared himself excited by the early results. can navigate the intricacies of Greenland’s Miki contains magmatic sulphide min-
“The project is looking very interesting mineral sector. eralisation associated with Tertiary mafic
and we were seriously excited to hit semi- dykes and sills which have intruded the Ar-
massive sulphide in the first hole and we chaean basement gneiss and Cretaceous
got sulphides in all the holes,” Solomon told sediments and there is evidence of similar
Paydirt. “It is only three holes into a 50km geology elsewhere on the property. Solo-
structure, so it is still very early but it is cer- mon said the presence at surface of blebs
tainly encouraging.” of sulphide consisting of pyrrhotite and chal-
The holes have now been sent to Aus- copyrite was a further encouraging sign.
tralia for assay while the drilling crews in “If we have blebs maybe close to major
Greenland complete the 5,000-10,000m sources of metals and we’ve also seen
programme before the field exploration semi-massive sulphide, disseminated sul-
window closes this month. phide and veining on an intrusive dyke run-
The presence of sulphides supported ning for 50km through our ground,” he said.
the interest Conico developed in the project An aeromag survey was flown across
from its first field season in 2020. That pro- the 50km dyke in July and August with
gramme saw surface sampling return blebs Solomon hopeful of getting a drill rig to any
of sulphide and elevated levels of copper promising targets before the end of the field
(2.2%), nickel (0.8%), palladium (3 g/t) and season.
gold (0.15 g/t). A second prospect at Ryberg – the
While still early days, Ryberg contains Sortekap gold prospect – is a newly discov-
many of the hallmarks of big intrusive sys- ered greenstone belt with orogenic, quartz
tems such as Norilsk and Voiseys Bay. vein-hosted gold mineralisation already
“Those surface sample numbers are identified.
right in line with Norilsk, albeit the rocks “We are hoping to also drill that this field
are older, Archaean,” Solomon said. “Both season,” Solomon said. “It is 40km away,
came up with a flood of basalt which can maybe get a rig there in early September,
be 9km thick in some parts of Greenland.” Conico is running the drill rigs hard as it works but the strategy is to hit the Miki prospect
Conico farmed into the project in July to complete up to 10,000m of drilling before the hard to start with.”
2020, offering 120 million shares at 1.5c/ summer exploration window closes this month The ambitious programme belies the no-
shares to acquire 100% of Longland Re- tion among some of Australia’s mining fra-
sources Ltd, a private UK-based company “He is so familiar with the regulations, the ternity that Greenland is a difficult place to
which holds the 4,500sq km Ryberg pro- processes, the local contracting scene and do business. The reputation was reinforced
ject. logistics there that it eliminated much of the by the Government’s recent decision to op-
Previously, Conico’s main asset had risk,” Solomon said. “That has been proved pose development of Greenland Minerals
been the Mt Thirsty cobalt-nickel JV with with the spectacularly successful campaign Ltd’s Kvanefjeld rare earths-uranium pro-
Barra Resources Ltd in Western Australia. which is thanks to the way he organised all ject.
However, with that project seemingly indefi- the logistics.” Solomon said his company’s interactions
nitely stalled, the company was looking for The company will continue drilling at with government had been good.
new opportunities. Ryberg until the onset of the harsh Green- “Thomas visited the Government in June
Solomon said when Conico executive land winter from the end of September. By and got a very positive response, they want
director Guy Le Page brought the project then, Conico could have drilled as much to see revenue into the country and min-
to the board last year, its advantages were as 10,000m across Miki and several other ing is a way of bringing it,” he said. “The
quickly identified. targets. other advantage is there is no uranium at
“We looked at it and said: ‘excellent po- “It will be a minimum of 5,000m and a Ryberg.”
tential, moderate risk but difficult logistics,” maximum of 10,000m because there are a
he said. “But once we talked to Thomas lot of targets to get through,” Solomon said. – Dominic Piper

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