Hammer Metals have kicked off their highly anticipated drill program at Mt Frosty, their joint venture with Glencore, adjacent to the old Mary Kathleen uranium mine east of Mt Isa.
The junior explorer agreed at the start of the year to buy a 51% stake in the Mt Frosty joint venture as part of a package of assets being sold from AuKing (formerly Chinalco Yunnan Copper). While other assets in the deal went straight through, there was a six-month wait with Mt Frosty while Hammer negotiated with 49%-owner Glencore.
The deal was finally settled at the end of August, along with a new JV agreement with Glencore, who clearly also see a lot of potential in the Mt Frosty ground. Hammer is operating the exploration program under the renegotiated joint venture, with each party contributing their equity share of the exploration budget.
The exciting potential of the area is now being put to the test, with a big soil copper anomaly around the old Jubilee workings the initial target. AuKing previously drilled 19 holes at Jubilee and returned some very impressive results, including 10 metres at 3.37% Copper and 2.27 g/t Gold from 107 metres and 9 metres at 2.8% Copper and 1.44 g/t Gold from 73 metres.
Hammer believes that previous wide-spaced drilling suggests excellent potential to delineate a copper-gold resource with minimal infill drilling.
The first stage of the new RC drill program consists of 17 holes for 1200 metres to test the top 100 metres below the surface. The second stage of drilling will be shaped by results from the first 17 holes.
Hammer shareholders can look forward to a feast of drill results from several projects in coming weeks. Follow-up RC drilling recently got underway at 100% owned targets at Kalman West and Hammertime, while drilling is also planned at Serendipity, Pharaoh East and Elaine in the current quarter.
By Matt Birney
