Page 105 - pd276-Oct19-mag-web_Neat

Exploration efforts are increasing at the
Lachlan copper-gold project in NSW
on the back of some promising initial
drilling results

Amy Rix prospect. Shallow mineralisation headline intercepts of 13m @ 5.7% copper at depth.
– within 30m of surface – grading 0.7-1% and 21m @ 2.67% copper. “We’ve done holes outside of those
nickel was also reported. “It’s a highly mineralised region but lenses of mineralisation to test that wider
Madden said shareholders were sup- very underexplored, particularly in recent system, we’re building that up at the mo-
portive of the company’s approach to fu- times,” Madden said. ment with the results coming in and we’ll
ture exploration and development work at “We’ve got over 3,000sq km, so quite a be looking for what I hope to be a follow-up
Sinclair. meaningful and significant package. We programme of, most likely, diamond drill-
“I think most people understand that think this is a very good opportunity for ing.”
Sinclair will somewhat take care of itself modern exploration tools and we can test Talisman’s move into NSW coincided
in terms of what happens with the nickel a lot of that [ground] with relatively low- with the sale of its 30% interest in the
price and our allocation of capital to match cost initial reconnaissance work. Springfield JV, including the high-grade
that, obviously in the absence of us taking “Of particular interest for us is the Gil- Monty copper mine, to Sandfire Resourc-
advantage of any strategic options that more suture, a large structure which has es NL. The deal netted the company $58.2
come along,” he said. had a very important part in the role of the million cash, with $41 million subsequently
“Our board has always taken a very, development of the Cobar ‘Superbasin’, returned to shareholders.
very disciplined approach to the allocation and it’s across that suture where our focus Madden said the company had em-
of capital and the focus is all about the un- is.” braced its new beginnings in NSW despite
derlying value of the asset and not diluting Talisman is seeking to drill up to five noting stark differences in the regulatory
shareholder exposure to that underlying high-priority targets identified from recent set-up compared to its previous history in
value.” RC drilling – including Blind Calf, Melrose Western Australia.
Talisman recently beefed up its NSW and Harding’s – with rigs due to start turn- “Some of the timeframes are slower, but
portfolio with the acquisition of the Luc- ing at the time of print. by and large if you understand the time-
know gold project via a farm-in agreement “The next stage will be to move to more frame and the process there’s clarity and
which will see the company initially earn refined targeted drilling, that’s when we will it’s just structuring the flow of the work and
51% by sole-funding $700,000 of explora- know if we’ve got some economic-grade the flow of the programmes to fit in with
tion within a two-year period. That stake mineralisation,” he said. that,” he said.
can then be increased to 70% from an ad- “We had immediate success at Blind “There are positives and negatives as
ditional spend of $800,000. Calf…it had previously been drilled prob- you can imagine with any environment you
Lucknow, which has historically pro- ably 10 years ago by another junior, they operate in. For me, we have very good re-
duced more than 400,000oz at an aver- put some holes underneath it and inter- lationships with the farmers and landhold-
age estimated mined grade of plus-100 g/t sected copper mineralisation but it was ers in the region, we’ve got access agree-
gold, is 200km south-east of Talisman’s very narrow. Our geological concept and ments that we believe both parties are
Lachlan copper-gold project which has model is that these things plumb deep into very happy with and we think there are a
been the company’s main game for the the system along these structures and you number of other opportunities in the region
past 18 months. then get these structurally-controlled lens- that are worth pursuing. I think that says a
Talisman reported immediate success es of mineralisation that, similar to Cobar, lot around what we feel of NSW.”
from drilling at the Blind Calf prospect with can be quite deep and then broaden out
– Michael Washbourne

aUSTRaLIa’S PaYDIRT OCTOBeR 2019 Page 105