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neWs IGO has formally committed to a

$15 million earn-in over Encounter’s
Yeneena copper-cobalt project in
WA’s Paterson province

Encounter finds good

company in the Paterson

IGO chief executive Peter Bradford
ncounter Resources Ltd managing with Greatland Gold plc. and Encounter managing director
Edirector Will Robinson believes Aus- St George Mining Ltd is the Pater- Will Robinson
tralia is on the cusp of a decade-long “re- son’s newest tenant, having last month
naissance” in greenfields exploration. launched an airborne magnetic survey
Speaking to Paydirt after IGO Ltd for- over more than 35km for prospective
malised a $15 million agreement to earn strike. tance, albeit acknowledging that not all
up to 70% of Encounter’s Yeneena cop- Encounter had been active at the “big brother-little brother” agreements
per-cobalt project in Western Australia’s Yeenena project for more than a decade stay on course indefinitely.
Paterson province, Robinson described when IGO entered the frame in Novem- “Year 3 of any JV or earn-in can often
2019 as a “massive turning point” for the ber 2018 as a prospective JV partner. be difficult if you haven’t had a lot of suc-
exploration sector, suggesting some of Following a trial period of more than a cess in the first two, so I think it’s impor-
the breakthroughs made in the past year year, the Peter Bradford-led company tant to structure a deal to enable the big
would encourage further discoveries formalised the lucrative partnership early guys to have a look under the bonnet, to
over the next decade. last month. do some of the work, to test some their
“There is just so much going on in the Under the agreement, IGO will sole- concepts, and if they’re comfortable with
technology space and in the data ana- fund $15 million of copper-cobalt ex- what they’re seeing, then they’ve got the
lytics space; the ability to rapidly assess ploration activities over the next seven resources to deploy really quickly,” Rob-
ground for potential is just improving all years to earn up to 70% of the Yeneena inson said.
the time,” he said. project, which covers more than 1,400sq “From all the dealings we’ve had, IGO
“I don’t think there’s any one silver bul- km of tenure. is committed to this opportunity that ex-
let, but it seems that push is starting to “Last year was a really important year ists in the Paterson. We don’t think Nifty
bear fruit. There’s been a series of re- at Yeneena because we applied a suite is the only giant copper deposit of the
ally good discoveries in the last year or of new geophysical and geochemical district. We think there’s a suite of new
so and they’ve continued into this year. technologies and methods for the first deposits to be found along those key
We might be at the start of 5 to 10-year time and that enabled us to really step structures up in this part of the world.”
renaissance of greenfields exploration. back and look at the overall project and Elsewhere in the Paterson, Encoun-
“It feels to me that we might look back the overall basin as a whole,” Robinson ter has started diamond drilling at its
and say this was the start of what was an said. 100%-owned Lamil copper-gold project,
exploration boom, even though we’re not “Coming out of that has been a suite which is co-funded for up to $150,000
seeing it in the marketplace at this point of new targets that we’re going to test under the WA Government Exploration
in time.” this year. If anything, I think it’s probably Incentive Scheme. Lamil was previously
Robinson will be hoping one of those given us a view that the potential there – explored by Newmont Corp in the 1980s.
potential new discoveries is made on scale-wise – is maybe even bigger than Encounter also expects to be kept busy
Encounter’s large ground position in the what we thought before.” across its growing portfolio of gold explo-
Paterson, one of Australia’s hottest ex- Robinson said IGO was attracted to ration projects in the Tanami and West
ploration provinces. the Paterson because of its analogues Arunta (both under JV with Newcrest)
Rio Tinto Ltd sparked the exploration to the Zambian copper belt, where some and in WA’s Eastern Goldfields.
frenzy with its Winu copper-gold discov- of the world’s biggest and highest-grade “In the Northern Territory we’ve also
ery in late 2018. The mining giant is one deposits of the red metal have been done a lot of copper project generation
of the Paterson’s most active players found. that’s resulted in over 6,000sq km being
and recently entered the next phase of Exploration work at Yeneena will put under application for exploration li-
its earn-in to the nearby Citadel copper- resume this month, beginning with fur- cence,” Robinson said.
gold project with Antipa Minerals Ltd. ther geophysical and geochemical pro- “Obviously Australia has been a great
Telfer operator Newcrest Mining Ltd grammes to firm up targets for drilling place for gold in the last 150 years, but I
also continues to report encouraging in the second half of the year. think we’re really only just getting going
drill results from the Haverion gold- Robinson was confident his com- on the copper potential.”
copper project under its JV agreement pany’s JV with IGO would go the dis- – Michael Washbourne

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