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IPO Watch: A new copper-gold explorer sets sights on Lachlan Fold Belt
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- Burrendong Minerals plans to list in December with three highly prospective projects in NSW’s Lachlan Fold Belt
- The assets are surrounded by major gold-copper players and mines
- The company will hit the ground running post listing with exploration and drilling
Australia’s IPO scene may be at a low-point, having fallen off from the 2021 rush when over 100 new explorers listed on the ASX, but intrepid explorers chasing gold, silver and copper resources have been hitting the runway, showing that the right project(s) can loosen investors’ purse strings.
With only two months of 2024 left, NSW-based Burrendong Minerals is looking to make a deal happen by Christmas via a $5m raise from investors at 20c per share, which will add to the $1m raised in pre-IPO funding.
Its Commonwealth deposit, one of three projects that make up the ‘Burrendong’ landholding, is situated among the ‘land of the giants’ in NSW’s Lachlan Fold Belt and is the jewel in the crown of a highly prospective 675km2 tenement package that also includes the Silica Hill and Galwadgere discoveries.
The assets are right on the doorstep of major discoveries such as Newmont Corporation’s (ASX:NEM) Cadia and Ridgeway mines, as well as Evolution Mining’s (ASX:EVN) Northparkes and Lake Cowal operations.
A mix of developer-stage and junior companies are also in the area including $300m market cap Alkane Resources (ASX:ALK), Belararox (ASX:BRX), Kaiser Reef (ASX:KAU), Godolphin Resources (ASX:GRL) and many others, showing a constant flow of exploration data and news from the region is not hard to come by.
And unlike many other pre-IPO resources companies, all three assets boast inferred resources that are open along strike and down dip, a substantial trove of historical drilling results and exploration upside.
Speaking with Stockhead, Burrendong Minerals founder Marte Ramp, a geologist by trade whose experience in the resources industry spans 45 years across a range of commodities, explains why the explorer is listing on the ASX and what attracted them to the area.
‘Huge in ground value’
“We have well over five million tonnes of material across all three of these projects, with total resources of 120,000 ounces of gold, 3.3 million ounces of silver and 30,000 tonnes of copper,” he said.
“Together those numbers indicate a huge in-ground value, and it’s really not a bad start for a small cap IPO.
“The deal brings into focus the area that we are in and that’s the highly endowed Molong Volcanic Belt within the Macquarie Arc of the Lachlan Fold Belt – a fantastic repository of fantastic mines,” Ramp added.
“Our projects are all within several kilometres of each other, on the same geological structure, it’s a fantastic spot – you really couldn’t do better than where we are.”
Commonwealth project
Ramp said the significant boost to precious metals prices over the last 12 months, with an expectation of even higher prices to come, has enhanced the potential expansion of existing JORC resources.
At Commonwealth, Burrendong plans to carry out a program of 6000m of drilling at various drill sites to evaluate scale potential along strike and at depth.
The mineralisation – typical of a volcanoegenic massive sulphide (VMS) type system – contains high-grade gold, silver, zinc, lead and copper with similarities to the Eskay Creek mine in Canada.
An inferred resource of 912,000t at 2.4g/t gold, 44 g/t silver, 1.2% zinc and 0.5% lead for 101,000oz gold equivalent, along with the high-grade nature of individual veins (up to 23 g/t gold and 1,176g/t silver) indicates potential to discover multiple lenses at depth.
Silica Hill and Gardwidgee
Over at Silica Hill, mineralisation lies between 60m and 200m northeast of the Commonwealth deposit and includes a stockwork of veins and disseminations of gold, silver, zinc, lead and copper typical of certain epithermal styles of mineralisation.
In conjunction with the planned drilling of the Commonwealth trend, Burrendong will at the same time, look to complete a number of diamond/RC drill holes within the Silica Hill trend.
The Galwadgere project was acquired from Sky Metals (ASX:SKY) and covers the prospective Silurian Gleneski Formation, host to numerous VMS style metalliferous systems and adjacent to the regionally significant Nindatheena Thrust.
Within the landholding includes known historic mines at Galwadgere, McDowells, Christies, Burrendong South and Carinya, which were worked for copper and gold.
Based on historic drilling by Alkane Resources (ASX:ALK) and more recently Sky Metals, the project hosts an inferred resource of 3.6Mt at 0.82% copper and 0.27g/t gold.
At least 3 high grade shoots have been identified with potential to significantly increase resources within 200m of surface for mining.
What’s coming up?
The decision to list comes only a year after Impact Minerals (ASX:IPT) sold a 75% interest in its Commonwealth project to Burrendong.
Post listing, Impact Minerals will retain a 49% interest in the Commonwealth project and a 12.5% interest in Burrendong with IPT managing director Dr Mike Jones to sit on the board.
Burrendong is hoping for a December 20 admission date with a $9.6m market capitalisation.
