Olympic-sized prize on offer for Cohiba in SA

Special Report: The path has cleared for Cohiba Minerals to start a highly anticipated drilling program on its South Australian tenements, which lie close to the state’s biggest and best copper-gold deposits.

Cohiba (ASX: CHK) told the ASX on Friday that it had given the greenlight for its drilling contractor, DRC Drilling, to mobilise to the Olympic Domain tenements following receipt of formal approval for the heritage survey and its environmental plan.

The Olympic Domain Project covers 831km² 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.

Drilling is likely to begin next week and will focus initially on the Horse Well prospect.

Horse Well borders BHP’s Oak Dam West project, where drilling in 2017 returned a staggering intercept of 425.7m at 3.04% copper, 0.59 g/t gold, 346ppm uranium and 6.03 g/t silver, sparking a share price run for explorers with ground in the area.

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

“We remain steadfast in our belief that we are situated in one of the most prospective areas within the best IOCG environment in the world,” executive director and CEO Andrew Graham said.

“Our position alongside BHP’s Oak Dam project has also provided additional confidence that we are very much in the right location.”

The first hole drilled at Horse Well has been planned to a depth of 1200m and will determine the order of additional holes to follow at the prospect.

Second prospect just as tantalising

Following the Horse Well drilling, Cohiba will then turn its attention to the Pernatty C prospect to the south, which represents a “compelling target for shallow, sedimentary-hosted copper”, according to the company.

Pernatty C is located 10km west of the Mt Gunson copper-cobalt-silver mine, which produced 150,000 tonnes of copper and 2.1 million ounces of silver at an average copper grade of 2.44%, and to the south west of Carrapateena.

In preparing for Olympic Domain drilling to begin, Cohiba engaged Euro Exploration Services to assist with field work on its tenements.

Headed by Chris Anderson and Tony Hill, Euro has exceptional experience in finding iron oxide copper-gold systems and played a critical role in the discovery of Carrapateena by prospector Rudy Gomez in 2005.

Cohiba owns a 51% interest in the Olympic Domain tenements and can increase that to 80% by meeting a particular expenditure milestone before March next year.

The current drilling program is likely to ensure that milestone is achieved.

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

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