Peak Minerals picks up copper ground once owned by Alan Bond

Part of Peak Minerals’ recently acquired copper-prospective ground was once owned by one of Australia’s most prominent businessman.

Peak Minerals’ (ASX:PUA) Carson project has a colourful history, having been owned in the 1970s by once-millionaire Perth developer Alan Bond.

Bond well known for his exploits, the headlines surrounding the 1970 copper discovery said it all: “Major copper hope in WA”.

A joint venture between Bond-backed Pacific Island Mines and Planet Gold had reportedly uncovered a major low-grade copper occurrence about 128km south of Wyndham in WA’s Kimberley district.

At the time, Bond was the chairman of Pacific Island Mines (PIM) and the joint venture company PIM-Planet. The significant discovery lured big international players, including multinational mining giant Anglo American, to the region to get a closer look.

Interestingly, the PIM-Planet JV was chasing uranium in the area but discovered copper while drilling the Carson volcanics in the Elgee Valley. . It wasn’t a one-off either, with 17 copper occurrences having been discovered in 1969 and another 23 in 1970 in the Elgee Valley, according to the Australian Miner.

Fast forward to 2021 and junior ASX-listed explorer Peak Minerals has now broken into the region with the acquisition of the Carson project and six other copper projects in the Halls Creek area.

The Carson project covers 250km of highly prospective strike extent of the same Carson volcanics that hosted the discovery made by Bond and his crew. These volcanics remain untested by modern geophysical methods.

Historic drilling at Carson returned significant results like 12.7m at 1.66 per cent copper from 37.5m and 9.35m at 1.04 per cent from 116.5m.

Peak Minerals has also picked up two other extremely promising projects – Copper Hills in the Meekatharra region and Cork Tree in the Earaheedy Basin.

Game changer

Copper Hills in particular has the potential to be a game changer for the company, with the project showing early potential to host what could be a large magmatic copper-nickel sulphide system.

A detailed review of previous exploration identified magmatic sulphides in a gossan at Lady Alma which was later confirmed in historic drill core.

Peak has completed a total of 10 holes at the Copper Hills project totalling 3,191.1m (seven reverse circulation holes totalling 1,633m, including two pre-collars, and three diamond holes and one diamond tail totalling 1,558.1m). These drill holes have tested multiple targets for oxide copper and magmatic copper and nickel sulphide mineralisation.

Top drill hits from the program included 37m at 0.67 per cent copper from 90m, including 11m at 1.25 per cent copper, and 1m at 1.53 per cent copper from 120m.

Previous exploration has identified a 3km prospective corridor defined by a combination of drilling, geochemistry, EM geophysics and historical mine workings.

In mid-October last year, Peak Minerals exercised an option it held to acquire Greenrock Metals and its portfolio of nine projects in three key areas spanning 1,289sqkm in the East Kimberley, Earaheedy Basin and the Mid-West mining centre of Meekatharra.

The Copper Hills project in the Meekatharra region is surrounded by some well-known big mines and deposits like Andy Well, Bluebird, Gabanintha and Barrambie.

This article was developed in collaboration with Peak Minerals, 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.