CuFe dives into drilling with renewed confidence in Tennant Creek

CuFe has brought the existing resource at its 60%-owned Orlando project in Tennant Creek, Northern Territory, into compliance with the current 2012 JORC code.

Resources at the project have been estimated at 6.6Mt grading 1.8% copper and 0.7 grams per tonne (g/t) gold along with accessory cobalt, bismuth, silver, lead, zinc and iron following a review and completion of additional requirements by Snowden Optiro Consultants.

While this is essentially unchanged from the 2004 numbers, reframing the resource under the 2012 JORC code provides the company with a concrete baseline to work with.

And CuFe Limited (ASX:CUF) has wasted no time in doing so, embarking on a 4,000m program of both reverse circulation and diamond drilling.

RC drilling will focus on infill drilling to increase confidence in the resource though a number will be for water monitoring purposes and to test step-out targets.

The diamond holes will provide core to support metallurgical and geotechnical testwork to further the company’s understanding of the orebody.

It follows the company completing an access agreement with the pastoralist on whose land the project is located and a heritage survey with the Aboriginal Areas Protection Authority.

“It’s exciting for us to commence our first drilling program at Tennant Creek, which will provide multi-faceted insights into our Orlando project to supplement the feasibility and approvals work currently being undertaken,” executive director Mark Hancock says.

“We will also step up our review of the exploration potential of the area, where historical drilling has identified a number of prospects that require further follow up.”

Historical copper and gold producing ground

The Orlando project covers about 240km2 in the highly prospective, high-grade Gecko – Goanna copper gold corridor which has historically produced more than 5.5 million ounces of gold at 19.3g/t and 488kt copper at 2.9%.

It consists of the Orlando, Gecko and Goanna resources with the first presenting the potential for near-term production through a cut back of the Orlando pit prior to underground development.

Mineralisation at Orlando is hosted in southeast-northwest trending lenses controlled by two shear zones which strike east-southeast while Gecko and Goanna mineralisation is hosted in a similar orientation to Orlando although offset to the east-northeast in a series of lenses controlled by a series of subparallel and subvertical shear zones

This article was developed in collaboration with CuFe Limited, 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.