chloe drilling, page-3

Talking here about $29 million worth of annual costs to produce about $200 million worth of copper sales. ie SEE BELOW - 15 tonnes to 25 tonnes PA


MiningNet News

Zinc, lead for Copper Strike

Wednesday, May 17, 2006
Ben Sharples

COPPER Strike says recent drilling at its Einasleigh copper project in northern Queensland has highlighted the potential for the project to be a polymetallic producer following strong zinc and lead hits.



Managing director Tom Eadie told MiningNews.net the zinc/lead results indicated that zinc production would form part of the feasibility study for the project, which was still on track for completion by the end of the year.

Drilling at the Chloe deposit returned hits of 6m at 9.7% zinc and lead, and 45 grams per tonne of silver, and 6m at 11.9% zinc and lead, and 91gpt silver, with further assays anticipated in the next few weeks.

A recently completed scoping study at the project, which made up of the Einalsleigh and Kaiser Bill deposits, indicated a five-year operation producing 15,000-25,000t of copper per annum would cost in the order of $A29 million.

Mining costs were pegged at $14 per tonne from Kaiser Bill and $40/t from Einasleigh. Transport and concentrating costs were an additional $119/t for both ore bodies. First production is anticipated in 2008.

Despite earlier doubts about the resource size and its economical potential, Eadie told MNn the company believes it had "plenty" of resources to go ahead, with increasing commodity prices "helping quite a lot".

Kaiser Bill's has a resource of 11 million tonnes at 0.84% copper, 0.15gpt gold and 6.3gpt silver, while Einasleigh has a resource of 940,000t at 3.3% copper, 0.18gpt gold and 15gpt silver.

Eadie indicated the project was not very big and the company would not pursue a joint venture partner and would look to bring the operation online alone.

Shares in the company jumped 2.5c (10.2%) during morning trade to 27c.