Page 34 - pd294-June21-mag-web_Neat

coPPeR sPotLIGHt

Comet upsizes its copper parcel

he decision by Comet Resources Ltd “Historical drilling has intersected
Tto bolster its copper portfolio is about some very good grades and thick inter-
more than managing director Matthew cepts of copper and zinc, but it still re-
O’Kane’s affinity for the red metal. mains relatively underexplored in terms
Comet entered into a binding option of drilling and has never had modern
agreement with Bath Resources Pty Ltd geophysics applied to it,” O’Kane said.
in March to acquire a suite of prospec- “The stuff they drilled is mainly in the
tive copper-gold-zinc-silver-lead assets oxide zone, meaning the sulphides have
in the Northern Territory. The 840sq km not been hit yet, so there’s opportunities
package includes the Oonagalabi pro- to go in there and apply modern geo-
ject which has only had one hole drilled physics to hopefully delineate drilling tar-
into it over the past 40 years despite a gets for the sulphides.
plethora of historical high-grade results. “It’s essentially in the same miner-
This latest acquisition comes just 12 alisation as the Jervois project…to have
months after the former graphite ex- something like that for us to potentially
plorer pounced on the Barraba copper chase was a big part of the attraction.”
project in New South Wales as well as Historical rock chip samples at Para-
the Santa Teresa gold project in Mexico. dise Well, about 10km south of Oona-
A self-confessed copper bull, O’Kane galabi, returned grades of up to 8.9%
said the opportunity to increase the com- copper and 2.2 g/t gold. Silver Valley is
pany’s exposure to the base metal – es- a further 300km to the north and boasts
pecially at a time when forecasters are similarly impressive rock chip samples
predicting further surges in prices on the with historical grades of up to 554 g/t sil-
back of efforts to reduce carbon emis- ver, 20% lead, 11.9% copper and 2 g/t
sions – was one too good to knock back. gold.
“Whilst I am very positive about Mexico Comet recently added three copper projects O’Kane is confident his company has
as a jurisdiction, with the ongoing travel in the Northern Territory to its burgeoning the necessary funding – circa $3 million
restrictions which are likely to persist for portfolio in the bank at the time of print – and oth-
some time, it’s easier to have projects in er resources available to deploy across
your backyard to work on than overseas, its burgeoning portfolio which up un-
so that was one of the reasons,” O’Kane per and 32 g/t silver containing 426,000t til 12 months ago only consisted of the
told Paydirt. copper and 21.4 moz silver. Springdale graphite project in Western
“The other aspect is we are still work- Despite a headline intersection of Australia.
ing through a Native Title permitting 36.6m @ 1% copper and 1.7% zinc from Metallurgical testing of a bulk sample
process on some parts of the Barraba 1.5m, only one hole had been drilled into from Springdale is due to be completed
licence in NSW. We’re advancing explo- Oonagalabi since 1981. by the end of this month, with the result-
ration activities on the freehold part of Other notable historical drill hits include ing concentrate then bound for Germany
the licence with some geophysics now 5m @ 1.26% copper and 1.22% zinc from for further validation of its amenability for
before we move on to a geochem soil 70m, 6m @ 0.9% copper from 102m and production of battery anode material for
sampling programme. But those ongo- 14m @ 0.7% copper from 148m. use in the EV industry.
ing delays with the Native Title, which we “It’s a plus 20-week process and it’s
are still working on, we cannot determine ongoing,” O’Kane said. “The consultants
the timing for that process, so it’s good are working on the testing and obviously
to have another project that we can ad- that will soon get sent on to Europe, so
vance in parallel.” it’s not very time intensive for me.
Under the agreement with Bath, Com- “However, I would say at a point in time
et paid a non-refundable $50,000 de- – and it’s probably once we get through
posit for a 45-day exclusive option over the next stage of exploration on all our
the NT copper portfolio which was due to projects – we may narrow our focus on
expire at the time of print. one or two of the projects and figure out
Along with Oonagalabi, the portfolio how we best get value for shareholders
includes the early-stage Paradise Well from the other assets.”
and Silver Valley projects. Very little Comet is also anticipating the start of
modern exploration has occurred on maiden drilling campaigns in Mexico and
these three properties. NSW over the coming months.
Oonagalabi is the most advanced of
the three and is hosted in a similar geo- – Michael Washbourne
logical setting to KGL Resources Ltd’s
Jervois project which boasts a recently Comet is continuing to negotiate Native Title
updated resource of 21mt @ 2.03% cop- approval for parts of its Barraba copper
licence in NSW

Page 34 JUNe 2021 aUSTRaLIa’S PaYDIRT