Special Report: BHP’s spectacular new iron oxide copper gold (IOCG) discovery in South Australia has presented the perfect opportunity for Pursuit Minerals to explore its options for monetising its nearby Coober Pedy project.

Pursuit (ASX:PUR) is currently focused on its growing portfolio in Sweden and Finland, but is keen to realise some value from Coober Pedy.

In addition to its Scanadnavian projects, the vanadium explorer holds 100% of the Coober Pedy project located in the same geological province as BHP’s Olympic Dam mega mine in South Australia.

Last week, BHP announced a major new IOCG discovery, 65km southeast of its mammoth Olympic Dam operations.

IOCG deposits, like Olympic Dam, can be large, high-grade, and simple-to-process concentrations of copper, gold and uranium ores.

Olympic Dam – which is aiming to produce 215,000 tonnes of copper for FY19 — is the third largest copper equivalent deposit, the largest uranium deposit, and third largest gold deposit in the world.

“I note that BHP recently revealed spectacular copper intercepts from drilling near Olympic Dam, and it is clear that our Coober Pedy project sits within the same geological domain that is rich in IOCG-style mineralisation,” chief Jeremy Read said.

Previous drilling at Pursuit’s Coober Pedy project by former owner Teck (Australia) back in 2015 has also shown similarities to OZ Minerals’ Prominent Hill mine – also an IOCG deposit – in the same region.

Pursuit now has a raft of options to consider – everything from a joint venture and farm-in arrangement to a potential sale.

Local juniors on the up

This news was felt by a number of miners and explorers searching for IOCG type deposits right next door, including Argonaut Resources (ASX:ARE), Aeris Resources (ASX:AIS), Tasman Resources (ASX:TAS), Red Metal (ASX:RDM), OZ Minerals (ASX:OZL) and Cohiba Minerals (ASX:CHK).

The Aeris share price was up 27 per cent last week, and Argonaut and Cohiba both got “please explain” notices from the ASX after their share prices jumped 41 per cent and 100 per cent, respectively, for what looked like no reason at all.

 

Pursuit Minerals is a Stockhead advertiser.
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