Bright Expectations for Doolgunna

BRIGHT EXPECTATIONS FOR DOOLGUNNA



COPPER miner Sandfire Resources has been busy in 2016, increasing production at its DeGrussa mine and upgrading exploration results inside its Greater Doolgunna project.

Monty

Sandfire’s Greater Doolgunna Project, 1700 square kilometres of contiguous tenements surrounding the Degrussa mine site, contains the newly discovered Monty copper-gold prospect – part of the Springfield joint venture with Talisman Mining.

Sandfire entered the JV in December 2015 as the controlling operator with a 70 per cent stake in the operation.

Monty is the first significant high-grade Volcanogenic Massive Sulphide (VMS) deposit to be discovered at Doolgunna outside of the original DeGrussa discovery.

On 7 April, the company released a total indicated and inferred mineral resource for Monty of 99,000 tonnes of copper and 55,000 ounces of gold grading 9.4 per cent copper and 1.6g/t gold.

A high-grade massive sulphide resource of 763,000t grading 12.1 per cent copper and 2.1g/t gold for 92,000t of contained copper and 52,000oz of contained gold was estimated in the report.

According to Sandfire, the discovery and rapid delineation of the high-grade Monty deposit is a watershed in its ongoing exploration of the Doolgunna district, providing an important ‘proof of concept’ for the potential of the region to host multiple plots of VMS copper-gold mineralisation.

Sandfire managing director Karl Simich said the mineral resource drill-out, which was undertaken by up to four drill rigs using state-of-the-art navigational drilling techniques, highlighted the exceptional grade, tenor and internal complexity of the Monty mineralisation.

“Exploration is continuing as a priority both in the vicinity of the deposit, where Sandfire believes there is excellent potential to discover more VMS mineralisation, and at several other emerging prospects within the region,” Mr Simich said.

“The focus of these studies will be to determine the best way of unlocking the value of the deposit, including leveraging off the existing processing plant and infrastructure at DeGrussa.”

“It is important to remember that this was a blind discovery in an area which already had significant previous exploration, using sophisticated techniques building on the excellent work carried out by Talisman historically in the area,” he said.

Future focus

With a growing exploration portfolio here in Australia and overseas, Sandfire said its aim was to continue its focus on discovering, developing and operating high quality resources.

While Monty remained a priority exploration focus in the near term, the company would be looking at other promising opportunities in the Greater Doolgunna region.

Planned exploration activities were set to commence near Monty over the coming months, including aircore, reverse circulation and diamond drilling in anticipation of another significant discovery.

The Homer corridor, 4km east of DeGrussa, will undergo down-hole electromagnetic (DHEM) surveying where a thick exhalative package had been intersected in previous drilling and in-fill aircore drilling at the nearby Homestead Prospect.

“We have long believed that the Doolgunna field contains multiple VMS deposits, and we now have definitive proof of that theory,” Mr Simich said.

“We are confident that this is just the beginning of a new chapter of exploration success at DeGrussa and with the recent breakthrough at Monty, we intend to leave no stone unturned to find more.”