Special Report: The gold explorer was one of the first new companies to peg ground in the mineral rich region in north WA. And having completed the latest round of drilling at its Jamieson Project in Victoria, MD David Boyd “can’t wait” to get started exploring new territory.

As a general rule, the team at Carawine Resources (ASX: CWX) is always on the move, with no less than four projects on the go; two gold-copper plays in Jamieson and the Paterson, a manganese-iron project nearby in Oakover, and a joint venture looking for nickel, copper and cobalt down south in WA’s Fraser Range.

But the company’s near-term focus is on Paterson, where it started to stake out some prospective land in late-2015.

And that land area has likely become the envy of many junior explorers since Rio confirmed the worst kept secret in mining earlier this year; its huge Winu copper-gold-silver discovery in the same Paterson region, underneath the nearby sand dunes.

For now, the company has wrapped up its drilling program at Jamieson, where it got some promising early strikes and is awaiting the next round of drill results.

And as it prepares to shift its focus to the Paterson, Boyd spoke with Stockhead about the near-term outlook for the company.

Walking on shallow ground

With an experienced team of expert geologists, exploring for prospective resources is where Carawine’s strength lies. That puts the Paterson project right in the company’s wheelhouse – although the opportunity didn’t just appear overnight.

“We recognised the potential well before the (Winu) discovery, so that faith has been justified,” Boyd says.

“We chose our ground based on the right host rocks, the right structures, and shallow cover. That drove the decisions behind the ground we picked up. And they sat in application until late last year, during which time we have seen two huge discoveries within 12 months. To see thatin one province is pretty rare.”

One of the defining features of the Winu discovery was that the minerals lie pretty close to the surface, which removes the need for expensive drilling programs.

“The top of that system is 30m below surface,” Boyd explained. “It’s been sitting there all this time under the sand dunes, despite all the previous explorers that have come through. That gives me serious excitement that there are discoveries still to be made and they aren’t necessarily going to be sitting at large depths.”

“Because we were early in picking up our ground, we stayed away from where the cover’s deep, which means most of the targets we generate can be drilled with relatively shallow reverse circulation (RC) holes. That makes our exploration lower cost, quicker and lower risk.

2019 outlook

In view of that, it’s no surprise that Boyd and his team “can’t wait to get out there”.

“We’ll be starting a big geophysical program this month with a detailed aeromagnetic survey to be followed by a helicopter-borne electromagnetic survey,” he said.

Investors should then be on the lookout for the first key results to start coming through in June and July.

“Our expectation is that they’ll generate targets which can be drilled during the current field season, around August to September.”

Ideally, Carawine will locate enough targets to then rank them and hit the best ones first.

“We’d expect any discovery to make a big difference to our value, regardless of it being deep like Greatland’s Havieron find, or shallow like Winu, because it will be all ours, all on 100%-owned ground.”

 

 

This story was developed in collaboration with Carawine Resources, a Stockhead advertiser at the time of publishing.
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