As part of the agreement, AW1 need a JORC compliant resource of >400,000 tonnes of contained copper @ 1% Cu for Storm to receive A$6 million.
The recent maidan resource achieved 205,000 tonnes of contained copper worth A$2.3 billion in ground metal value. Therefore, a 95% increase in the Storm resource this season is required to find another A$2.3 billion worth of copper. Not many companies can achieve that sort of resource upgrade in a short period of time.
It feels like they already can achieve the 400,000 tonnes of contained copper metric by simply drilling out all the shallow (open in all directions) copper mineralisation from last season plus now being able to add the high-grade Thunder, Lightning Ridge and Cyclone North zones. Thunder's copper mineralisation alone of 49 metres depth at 3%Cu (unknown strike length and thickness) will provide valuable metal units to the next JORC resource release.
This season has also identified at least 10x drill targets based on preliminary Moving Loop Electromagnetic geophysics work (as stated in the 21st May ASX release) across the project area, see figure 5 below.
Appears to be a case of following the network of structural faults spanning for kilometres to find the copper high grade ore zones.
I suspect the 400,000 tonnes of contain copper is guaranteed for 2024-2025 drill season. Therefore, what is the upside?
- 205,000 tonnes contained copper (baseline), worth ~ A$2.3 billion
- 410,000 tonnes contained copper (100% resource upgrade), worth ~ A$4.6 billion
- 512,500 tonnes contained copper (150% resource upgrade), worth ~ A$5.8 billion
As Taurus say, Storm Copper Project is "rapidly emerging as a high-grade, district-scale copper project".
Reference:
- AW1, 24th June 2024..."The high-grade 2023 copper discoveries at Thunder (48.6m @ 3% Cu in ST23-03), Lightning Ridge (15.2m @ 2.3% Cu and 15.2m @ 2.1% Cu in ST23-52) and Cyclone North (7.6m @ 1% Cu in ST23-55)".
- AW1, 21st May 2024, Thick New Copper Zones Defined at Storm....."The initial shallow-looking MLEM surveys used 100-200m N-S line spacings, 100m sensor stations, and 200m x 200m loops. The survey has identified over 10 EM anomalies that are classified as high-priority for immediate drill testing, and numerous other lower order anomalies which are considered to have the potential to represent copper sulphides (Figure 5). Phase 2 of the MLEM survey is now underway which will aim to screen at deeper than 250m depth. These surveys are using a 400m x 400m loop size to search below the near-surface copper mineralisation".
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