Cohiba unlocks new copper-gold targets near Olympic Dam

Special Report: Drilling by Cohiba at its Horse Well prospect in South Australia along with analysis of historical data has led the company to new targets that will be tested in follow-up drilling.

Cohiba Minerals (ASX:CHK) is drilling four deep holes at the Horse Well prospect, which borders BHP’s mammoth Oak Dam West discovery in South Australia.

Horse Well is part of Cohiba’s Olympic Domain Project that covers 831sqkm in the Gawler Craton, to the south of BHP’s giant Olympic Dam copper-gold-uranium mine and to the north of OZ Minerals’ $1 billion Carrapateena copper-gold mine, which began production in December last year.

One hole drilled at Horse Well, and the closest to Oak Dam West, showed strong alignment to an iron oxide-copper-gold (IOCG) environment and visual evidence of sulphides.

Horse Well area showing key tenement EL6183, drill sites and Oak Dam West prospect (BHP). Pic: Supplied

The analysis of drill core from this hole is now a priority for Cohiba.

Comprehensive geophysical analysis of Horse Well conducted by Cohiba and its consultants indicates the presence of a major “feeder” system believed to be associated with IOCG mineralisation that is comparable in size to the Olympic Dam feeder system.

IOCG systems can be tremendously large, high grade, and simple-to-process concentrations of copper, gold and other economic minerals.

“We remain committed to the program of work and are excited by what we have seen to date,” CEO Andrew Graham said.

“We are continually assessing the historical data in conjunction with the current information, as it comes to hand, to further refine our models and enhance discovery success.

“We have identified additional targets in the Horse Well area associated with the current drilling and are assessing options for further follow up drilling in the eastern part of the Horse Well area.”

Drilling of the fourth hole started on November 10 and is expected to extend down to a depth of 1200m.

An earlier hole was drilled into the western-most target in the Horse Well project area down to a depth of 1182.9m.

The core from the second hole (HWDD03) will be tested where visible chalcopyrite (copper sulphide) and molybdenite (molybdenum sulphide) were visually observed in the basement material.

The analysis of core from the first hole (HWDD02) will primarily test the 208m intersection of pyritic shale (Tapleys Hill Formation) which returned anomalous copper, lead and zinc values at the upper contact, when tested via hand-held XRF in the field.

Earning a bigger slice

In September, Cohiba passed the expenditure milestone to earn 80 per cent of the Olympic Domain tenements.

Under the farm-in agreement signed with Olympic Domain Pty Ltd in March 2018, Cohiba had until March next year to spend more than $1.5m to lift its interest from 51 per cent to 80 per cent.

But the four-hole deep drilling program that is nearing completion at the Horse Well prospect took the company past that milestone well ahead of time.

This article was developed in collaboration with Cohiba Minerals, a Stockhead advertiser at the time of publishing.

This article does not constitute financial product advice. You should consider obtaining independent advice before making any financial decisions.