Canadian company Teck Cominco has announced an outstanding drill result from the Carrapateena project in South Australia. Hole 50 included 905m grading 2.1% copper and 1.0g/t gold. Within this interval are intersections of 191m grading 3% copper and 0.9g/t gold and 95m grading 3.3% copper and 0.6g/t gold. Several drill holes 100m to the north, east, and southeast have reported �visual� copper mineralization. Assays are pending for these holes. Metallurgical testwork and resource modeling are underway.
Carrapateena is located in the world class Olympic Dam copper-gold province that is prospective for copper-gold-uranium mineralisation. In late 2005 a prospector Rudy Gomez privately funded drilling of the discovery hole which yielded an intersection of 67m at 3% copper. Teck struck a deal with Gomez whereby it has the right to acquire a 100% interest of the property by making periodic cash payments totalling A$32 million, completing a minimum of 75,000 metres of drilling on the main Carrapateena zone, testing seven additional geophysical targets on the combined tenements and making a final payment equal to 66% of the fair market value of the property as determined by an independent valuator.
Carrapateena is shaping as the best Australian base metal discovery in the current mining boom, and the latest result has sparked renewed investor in ASX listed explorers in the district.
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With all that in mind Oz paid $250million for Carrapateena and AXT would probably retain 25% of a discovery at Intercept Hill.
OZ Minerals, which owns the Prominent Hill gold and copper mine southeast of Coober Pedy will pay Mr Gomez and his partners $US250 million for the project, which is 100km southeast of BHP Billiton's Olympic Dam copper, gold and uranium mine.
Mr Gomez discovered the copper and gold deposit in 2005, using his own money and funding from the State Government's Plan for Accelerating Exploration.
Mr Gomez's share of the sale price is $US145 million, with Canadian company Teck and minority shareholders owning the rest.
I stand by my earlier rants
AXT Price at posting:
10.5¢ Sentiment: None Disclosure: Held
