Aruma Resources has acquired three new projects featuring copper and uranium in South Australia and Queensland, adding to the company’s three-project rare earths and lithium portfolio in Western Australia.
The new projects include the Wilan iron oxide-copper-gold-uranium project on SA’s Olympic Dam doorstep and the Queensland-based Fiery Creek copper play and Bortala copper operation that both sit within the State’s Mt Isa region. Management believes the acquisitions represent a significant milestone.
Six days ago, the company received shareholder approval for the deal that was first revealed in May and it has issued 26.5 million of its shares and 52.5 million options to vendor, NHM Holdings, with an attached six-month lock-in period for the newly-issued shares.
Aruma Resources managing director Glenn Grayson said: “We are delighted to complete this pivotal acquisition, which will see Aruma expand focus into key high-demand commodities, copper and uranium in two of Australia’s pre-eminent, active mineral precincts. With the acquisition now complete, we plan to commence targeted, systematic field work programs across the new projects to define drill targets, with the aim of progressively drill testing priority targets to unlock each project’s full value proposition.”
The company has wasted no time in getting boots on the ground after recent site visits to Fiery Creek and Bortala confirmed the prospectivity of the project areas. Both sites are throwing up some invaluable data as management continues to dig through a raft of historical exploration results from previous owners.
In the instance of Fiery Creek, two rock chip samples logged by Sumitomo Metal Mining assayed 36 per cent copper, while Anglo American reported grades of 7.5 per cent to 35.4 per cent from samples taken at the nearby Twilight and Hellfire prospects.
At Bortala in 1988, former miner Ashton Resources put four drillholes into an anomaly called R9, which logged an “epithermal-like” vein that reported strong radiometric anomalism with readings of 0.18 per cent copper, 0.44 per cent zinc and 0.25 per cent lead – all close to surface. After further reviews of the historical data, Aruma has since identified multiple additional targets throughout the lease including copper-gold anomalies named Erin, Bull Creek, Nara and E5.
Both Queensland-based projects, which sit within the Mt Isa copper belt – a region renowned for its rich mineral deposits such as Mount Oxide, Lady Loretta and Capricorn Copper – are relatively unexplored. To add confidence, other global tier-one mining houses such as Rio Tinto, Anglo American and Teck Resources have substantial exploration tenure in the region.
In SA, Aruma’s new IOCG-uranium prospect Wilan is 140km north-west of BHP’s Olympic Dam and spans almost 2000 square kilometres. The lease, which features a key IOCG target, is seen as holding highly-prospective, big-scale copper-gold discoveries similar to Prominent Hill, another one of BHP’s tier-1 projects.
Immediately to the east, Copper Search is also on the hunt for behemoth discoveries, with deep diamond holes currently being drilled at its Paradise Dam and Douglas Creek prospect. At both sites, strong induced-polarisation (IP) and magnetic signals have been identified, which may suggest something is brewing in the area.
In any event, the Wilan prospect features a key IOCG target and a Playa Lake uranium target, both of which have never been drill-tested.
Aruma has sealed the deal and picked up on what appears to be some red-hot ground for IOCG-uranium exploration. All three of its new projects are in areas that have thrown up global tier-1 discoveries, but oddly enough, are still relatively unexplored.
With copper and uranium in such high demand, one drillhole in the right spot could easily turn out to be a company-maker. Investors will be watching eagerly for signs of the company’s first drill campaign.
Is your ASX-listed company doing something interesting? Contact: matt.birney@businessnews.com.au
By James Pearson
