Askari targets Kimberley copper in maiden drill campaign

The dust clouds from a maiden drill campaign are billowing in Western Australia’s Kimberley with Askari Metals kicking off a 2500m RC program at its Horry copper-gold project.

The program is targeting the site’s Horry Horse copper prospect that was identified as a high-priority target after rock chip samples returned results up to 8.5 per cent copper, 0.71 grams per tonne gold and 42 g/t silver.

Other notable sample highlights in the Horry Horse mineralised zone include 3.77 per cent copper, 0.63 g/t gold and 12 g/t silver.

Askari says mineralisation at Horry Horse is visible at the surface with a total strike length of 526m whilst the company will also focus its attention on the Mt Dockrell prospect where gold mineralisation has also been discovered.

Because Horry has not previously been drilled, the first phase of the campaign will target mineralisation at depths of 20m, 40m and 60m.

Previously the mineralised trend at Horry Horse was defined across a length of more than 400m, however in August a 4.3 per cent copper rock chip sample was collected to the south-west of the prospect, potentially extending the trend another 480m.

It is this recently discovered southern copper target, that the company believes is an extension of the Horry Horse mineralisation, that will be the focus of a second phase of drilling.

Askari Metals Vice President of Geology and Exploration, Johan Lambrechts said: “We are excited by the commencement of this inaugural RC exploration drilling campaign on the Horry project and are excited to carry forward the confidence gained by the positive surface results at the project into this drilling program.”

In June Askari turned up 31 gold nuggets with an exploration technique known as gold loaming at Horry.

The company followed this in August when it uncovered up to 31.9 g/t gold in stream sediment from another gold loaming campaign that included panning creeks and tributaries, metal detecting and collecting rock chip samples.

The area, to the north of Horry Horse, will also come in for some attention in the second phase of drilling.

Sitting just 50km to the north-east of Horry is ASX-listed Cazaly Resources’ Halls Creek copper project that comes packed with some high-grade and broad copper intercepts.

Previous exploration at the nearby project returned results of 57m going 5.04 per cent copper in one hole and 117m running 0.32 per cent copper in a different hole.

The Horry project sits along the Halls Creek Mobile Belt that is prospective for a range of commodities including copper, silver, nickel, lead, zinc and diamonds.

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