Alkane explores copper projectBy Ben Sharples January 26, 2007...

Alkane explores copper project
By Ben Sharples
January 26, 2007

BUOYANT commodity prices have led diversified explorer Alkane Exploration to dust off a little-known copper project in its portfolio, a move which is likely to spark the interest of some international groups.
Alkane is better known as a gold explorer and one-time gold miner, but sitting on the outskirts of the company's portfolio is the Galwadgere copper project about 300km north-west of Sydney.

"It is a project which we have held for a while, it is part of a big package that we call our Wellington-Bodangora project, which sits up in the Wellington area of NSW,'' managing director Ian Chalmers said.

"We drilled Galwadgere in 2004, we proved approved up about two million tonnes at one per cent copper and 0.3 grams per tonne of gold.

"It is relatively shallow and it produces a really good quality copper sulfide concentrate.

"There are no nasties in it, but it is probably just a fraction too small.''

Galwadgere took a back seat to Alkane's more advanced gold and zirconia projects, but the surging copper price has forced a rethink on its future.

It had also peaked the interest of some international outfits.

"We've kept discussions going. We have no offer on the table, but we've kept the dialogue ticking along.

"They are probably all sitting back and waiting for us to do the next stage,'' Mr Chalmers said.

"It is in a beaut location, in terms of getting something up, the capital cost would be quite small and that's why the numbers work so well.''

Alkane is set to conduct an exploration program at the project in the coming weeks in a bid to identify new drill targets and expand the resource.

"When we did the drilling in 2004, at that stage then, even when the copper price was about $US1 per pound, it actually worked quite good,'' Mr Chalmers said.

"Certainly this year the view is, with metal prices what they are, we'd be really stupid if we didn't have another serious look at it ... but we'd like it to be at least twice the size to make it work properly.''

Alkane ran some preliminary numbers over the project in 2005 that indicated the project could support a 500,000 tonnes a year operation producing about 10,000 tonnes equivalent of copper metal.