CuFe boosts indicated resources at NT copper-gold play

• CUF updates indicated resources to 56% at Tennant Creek project
• Project could benefit from increased copper and gold prices
• Company aiming to release scoping study soon

Special Report: More than half of the resources at CuFe’s Orlando copper-gold deposit are now in the higher confidence indicated category, a huge boost for its Tennant Creek project in NT.

The project holds a resource of 10.35Mt at 1.53% copper and 0.92g/t gold for 160,000t copper and 302,000oz gold.

The centrepiece is the Orlando deposit, which contains 5.95Mt at 1.16% copper and 1.5g/t gold for 68,800t Cu and 287,000oz Au, or 579,100oz on a gold equivalent basis.

Updating inferred to indicated is a big deal for the company. Indicated resources have a higher level of confidence than inferred, with more reliable data to support preliminary feasibility studies for a project, and can be incorporated into reserves in a future mine plan.

CuFe (ASX:CUF) has now bumped up the indicated portion from 42% to 56% of the total resource following a comprehensive Quality Assurance and Quality Control (QAQC) review. No additional drilling or re-estimation was required.

The company says the update is a key input to the Orlando scoping study, which is expected to be finalised in the near-term.

Scoping study set for release

Orlando is not a greenfields opportunity requiring a large capital outlay to uncover the orebody. Instead, it’s an open pit ripe to be cutback, having closed with copper prices under US$1/lb back in the 1990s.

The red metal is now fetching between US$4.50-5.50/lb, depending on the market, and with gold hovering around US$3324/oz, CUF is looking well placed to get back into production at Tennant Creek.

Now the QAQC review has clarified and improved the drilling dataset from 2011, 2012 and 2022, CUF has its sights set on releasing the project’s scoping study.

“It’s pleasing to increase the confidence in a portion of our resource at Orlando and to be able to reflect this update into our scoping study, which we expect to release shortly,” executive director Mark Hancock said.

“As our Tennant Creek project has been explored and mined over several decades there is a wealth of information across multiple locations, and we continue to gain more comfort as we review and rationalise this.”

This article was developed in collaboration with CuFe, 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.