King River continues NT copper-gold hunt after rain delay

The heavens have finally closed over King River Resources’ ground in the Northern Territory and it has declared itself open for drilling business for copper and gold at the many prospects within its Tennant Creek East project.

The reverse-circulation (RC) drill program, delayed for several months due to flooding rains, is planned for 10,800m at 13 prospects within three of the company’s Top End projects – Tennant Creek East, Kurundi and Rover East. Three priority prospects – Langrenus, Commitment and Providence – are all in proximity to several “eye-watering” copper-gold drill intersections recorded in recent years in the highly-regarded Tennant Creek region.

King River says the planned four-month program will kick off at its Langrenus prospect, with seven holes planned for 2000m. It will be followed by the Commitment prospect with four holes for 850m and then Providence’s four holes for 500m.

The program has been designed to follow up on drilling at the Tennant Creek East project last year, where the company found low-grade gold mineralisation associated with several geophysical anomalies.

Management says many targets were generated from its extensive geophysics program last year, including at its Tennant Creek East, Rover East, Kurundi and Barkly projects. The targets sit along strike from several geophysical and geological trends.

Known high-grade copper-gold deposits in the region include Rover, Bluebird and Mauretania.

King River Resources chairman Anthony Barton said: “Our Tennant Creek program is a process of targeting interesting anomalies along strike, or close nearby, previously mined or identified high-grade gold and copper mineralisation. This is a classic wildcat type of drill program over this highly-prospective area, where the more holes we drill, the higher the chances must be to hit something of importance.”

Barton also said the company’s budgets are costed to allow for $2 million to be spent on up to 13,500m of drilling, if results warrant an expansion to the program. It is in a sound financial position, with $4 million sitting in the bank.

The Langrenus target is 700m along strike of the Hopeful Star historic workings and 1km along strike from Emmerson Resources’ Mauretania prospect where that company recorded a sensational drill result of 20m at 38.5 grams per tonne gold in a diamond drillhole. Mauretania has a gold mineral resource of 256,216 tonnes at 3.5g/t for 28,974 ounces and it is said to remain open and unexplored at depth.

King River says the Mauretania-Hopeful Star trend extends onto its tenement and can be seen in detailed gravity and magnetic work. Emmerson’s nearby Hermitage prospect also produced a coffee-spitting intersection of 116m at 3.4 per cent copper and 0.88g/t gold – rated one of the drill hits of the year in 2021.

Three priority target areas have been identified for drill-testing at Langrenus and Target 1 is just 700m from the Hopeful Star historical mine on the Mauretania trend. Geophysical work last year identified a continuous chargeability anomaly parallel to the mineralised trend.

Previous drilling conducted by the company to the north of the anomaly did not test the newly-identified target.

Target 2 is another geophysical chargeability anomaly coincident with a significant gravity anomaly down-plunge of a previous company drillhole that intersected a broad geochemically-anomalous zone of fracturing, veining and ironstone alteration. Target 3 is a further coincident chargeability and gravity anomaly close to the intersection of two north-east gravity trends.

King River’s Commitment target is 4km north-west of Tennant Minerals’ Bluebird deposit where recent results returned a diamond-drill intersection of 61.8m going 2.3 per cent copper including 6.85m at a “head-turning” 17 per cent in a massive sulphide zone.

The Bluebird deposit also produced results of 63m at 2.1 per cent copper and 4.6g/t gold from 153m including 27.55m going 3.6 per cent copper and 10g/t gold and 7m at 38.5g/t gold.

The drilling at Commitment will home in on new geophysical targets based on several gravity and magnetic anomalies associated with geochemically-anomalous ironstone discovered in 2020. The RC rig will then move to the Providence area to follow up on last year’s drilling that discovered ironstone alteration and structure associated with several geophysical anomalies.

After the company’s drill program at the three prospects within Tennant Creek East is complete, it plans to drill about 2450m at the Kurundi project. It has also planned further drilling at Tennant Creek East with 400m at its Kuiper 1 target and 1200m at Kuiper 2 and that is expected to be followed by 3400m worth of drilling at its three Rover East prospects.

To be able to fully fund the drilling of a range of targets in an area known for producing stellar copper-gold hits, puts King River in an enviable position.

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