Eagle Mountain to put a rocket under Oracle Ridge drilling

Exploration activity at Eagle Mountain’s Oracle Ridge project will expand substantially to increase resources and evaluate the potential of the near-mine area.

A second diamond rig is expected to mobilise to site by May 10, this along with both rigs transitioning to full-time drilling will in turn lead to a three-fold increase in drilling from June.

Exploration activity will expand further with the plan in place for the addition of three rigs by the end of the fourth quarter this year.

This expansion is a substantial increase from current activity with a single rig carrying out drilling on a 20-day on, 10-day off roster on both day and night shifts.

Besides expanding the existing JORC resource of 184,000t of contained copper metal, Eagle Mountain’s (ASX:EM2) accelerated drilling campaign will seek to establish a high certainty measured resource, test high priority targets within a few kilometres of the existing mine, and assist in vectoring towards potential deeper sources of mineralisation.

“Our recent drilling and exploration results at Oracle Ridge indicate the very strong potential for Oracle Ridge to host increased levels of mineralisation,” chief executive officer Tim Mason said.

“Since commencing drilling in September 2020, more than 90% of the holes assayed outside the existing JORC resource have intersected mineralisation above our cut-off grade.

“We are also building a strong pipeline of targets including the recently announced high-grade copper mineralisation outcropping at the OREX prospect along a four-kilometre contact.

“These results give us confidence to accelerate our drilling with the aim of increasing our existing JORC resource and evaluating the extraordinary potential of the near-mine area.”

The company is well funded for the accelerated drilling following the successful $11m capital raising earlier this year.

Oracle Ridge exploration focus

Eagle Mountain’s accelerated program will focus on upgrading resources as well as the Leatherwood Contact, Oracle Ridge Extension (OREX), Golden Eagle, Deep Porphyry Potential and Red Hawk areas.

Infill drilling will be carried out to establish a measured resource in preparation for mining studies in areas that are likely to be mined early in the potential production profile while metallurgical test work will be carried out to optimise processing methods.

Drilling will test the potential for the Leatherwood contact in the southern area of Oracle Ridge to host further mineralisation.

Recent work had returned strong mineralisation such as 0.4m at 34.4 per cent copper, 367 grams per tonne (g/t) silver and 26.2g/t gold within a broader 12.7m intercept grading 3.96 per cent copper, 49.1g/t silver and 1.4g/t gold.

OREX is considered to be highly prospective for additional skarn-hosted copper-silver-gold mineralisation in a similar geological setting to the Oracle Ridge mine with recent geological mapping and sampling identified extensive outcropping mineralisation along a 4km zone with grades of up to 10.6 per cent copper.

Further work will include geophysics, data compilation, drill targeting and drilling.

Eagle Mountain is reviewing the results of recently completed mapping and drone magnetic programs at Golden Eagle, which contains high-grade, shallow gold-copper mineralisation near historical mine workings.

It is also carrying out advanced studies to improve understanding of the alteration system at Oracle Ridge and allow vectoring towards the potential deep porphyry below the Leatherwood granitic intrusive.

Finally, the company is assessing additional exploration activities at the Red Hawk area, which is a very strong geophysical anomaly that is prospective for a large copper mineralised porphyry system. This work includes the selection of suitable drill pad locations for an initial drill program in this area.

This article was developed in collaboration with Eagle Mountain, 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.