QMines gears up for third and fourth resource upgrades. Image: Getty
QMines gears up for third and fourth resource upgrades in less than 2 years at Mt Chalmers copper-gold project
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QMines is set to deliver its third resource upgrade for its Mt Chalmers copper-gold project in a matter of weeks and just 18 months after making its ASX debut, with a fourth slated for release in early 2023.
QMines’ (ASX:QML) has been quickly ticking the boxes at its flagship Mt Chalmers project, located 17km northeast of Rockhampton in Queensland, having fast tracked exploration and resource growth after buying its own drill rig.
This has not only increased the speed of drilling, but it has also significantly reduced the cost.
QMines is on track to deliver a third resource upgrade in November followed by a maiden resource for Woods Shaft – the fourth resource upgrade for Mt Chalmers – in the first quarter of 2023 after the company completed drilling of the target.
“We have made excellent progress across several areas at Mt Chalmers including the completion of the Woods Shaft validation drilling which will now enable the delivery of a maiden resource at Woods Shaft,” executive chairman Andrew Sparke said.
“There were some fairly significant historical drillholes from this area and the completion of this drilling will enable the delivery of a fourth resource upgrade early in the new year.”
The company only listed in May last year, meaning it will have released four resource upgrades in less than two years.
Recent drilling has demonstrated significant growth potential at Mt Chalmers, which currently hosts a copper equivalent resource of 5.8Mt at 1.7% copper equivalent for 101,000 tonnes of contained copper equivalent. Nearly 80% of that resource is in the higher confidence Measured and Indicated JORC categories.
Demonstrating the exploration upside, QMines has defined three exploration targets totalling between 4.8 million tonnes and 6.8 million tonnes and four large copper and zinc soil anomalies. That’s seven potential regional repeats of Mt Chalmers.
The company has drilled 11 holes for 905m at the Woods Shaft deposit, with all samples delivered to the lab in Brisbane and results expected shortly.
Reverse circulation drilling at Woods Shaft was undertaken to validate historical drilling and convert all or part of the historical exploration target into a Maiden JORC 2012 compliant resource.
Woods Shaft is situated less than a kilometre to the southwest of the Mt Chalmers deposit and has been defined by previous explorers.
The deposit is currently over 250m in strike length and up to 40m wide, with mineralisation extending from surface to a depth of 90m in places and containing gold and base metal mineralisation.
QMines says the deposit appears similar to Mt Chalmers.
The company is continuing its planned 30,000m reverse circulation and diamond drilling programs at Mt Chalmers.
The completion of the third and fourth resource upgrades will allow QMines to kick off pit optimisation and a scoping study early next year.
This article was developed in collaboration with QMines, 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.
