Emu scores large east coast exploration ground

Mineral explorer EMU has secured the right to earn up to 80 per cent in a trio of exploration permits covering 850 square kilometres in Queensland’s Georgetown mining district under a Heads of Agreement with TSXV-listed Rugby Resources. Whilst gold has been the traditional focus for the region the tenements are also prospective for base and battery metals including lithium, silver, lead, zinc, copper, tin and uranium.

Key terms of the deal will see EMU earn a 50 per cent interest by spending $750,000 in exploration or development expenditure and another 30 per cent slice for a further spend of $1.1m.

Data presented by the Queensland Geological Survey suggests the broader district has a substantial mineral endowment with more than 1,000 mines, prospects and identified mineral occurrences.

Within EMU’s new landholding itself, dozens of highly significant mineral occurrences are under-explored and unexploited.

The company says in terms of systematic modern exploration the tenements are virgin ground and points to numerous historical gold mines within the project as immediate targets for exploration.

Additional areas of interest include a porphyry copper prospect and numerous silver and lead targets.

EMU Non-Executive Chairman, Peter Thomas said: “The Georgetown tenement package provides significant scale and adds dimension to EMU’s highly prospective WA project portfolio. It presents a remarkable opportunity for the discovery of gold and other minerals in demand for electric vehicles and the global energy/carbon balance transition.”

One of Australia’s largest ever producing gold mines, Kidston, lies just 90km south-east of Georgetown’s centre. Discovered in 1907 the Kidston mine produced 5.1 million ounces of gold in the 16 years between 1985 and 2001 alone.

It appears recently the district’s significant gold mining history is coming back to life.

Yesterday, ASX-listed Laneway Resources just announced it has kicked the Georgetown gold processing plant back into action with its first gold pour expected by the end of next week.

Georgetown also has an emerging lithium province with the lithium-bearing metal lepidolite found in significant quantities along with anomalous tantalum-niobium pegmatites at Buchanan’s Creek just 30km south-west of the town.

The emerging province was first brought into the light in 2019 by private company Strategic Metals Australia after it unveiled a significant lithium discovery at Buchanan’s Creek.

Strategic Metals draws similarities between its find and ASX-listed Infinity Lithium Corporations' 75-per cent owned San Jose project in Spain that is hailed to contain the European Union’s second-largest hard rock lithium deposit of 111.3 million tonnes at 0.61 per cent lithium oxide.

Market meerkats can expect plenty of news flow from EMU as the explorer now has expansive projects in prospective districts on both sides of the continent.

Is your ASX-listed company doing something interesting? Contact: matt.birney@businessnews.com.au