King River punches more holes into Top End gold-copper play

King River Resources has punched 68 reverse-circulation (RC) holes for 7998m into its Tennant Creek East and Kurundi projects that sit near the town of Tennant Creek in Australia’s Top End.

The company’s $2 million drilling campaign has been designed to also test a range of new targets generated from an intensive geophysics program that was completed last year.

Management says its drilling to date has primarily been focused on the Tennant Creek East project where it has identified multiple new ironstone zones and structures. It plans further drilling at the project in the near term.

Assays are pending from drilling at the company’s Langrenus, Commitment and Providence prospects, where new quartz, iron and hematite zones were encountered at Langrenus. Only one hole was drilled at Commitment, while results from the Providence prospect previously returned geochemically anomalous levels of 0.1 grams per tonne gold, 109g/t antimony and 194 parts per million cobalt.

Interestingly, antimony has been in the news the past week due to China blocking the export of the alloy-hardening material that is used in steel, bullets, machine bearings and as a fire-retardant additive. Several ASX-listed companies – including Larvotto Resources and Nagambie Resources – have benefited from China’s decision, with rocketing share prices this week.

Phase-one drilling has also been completed at King River’s Kurundi project, targeting the promising Kurundi Main prospect. Assays are pending, however, the company is already planning a phase-two program at the prospect.

King River Resources chairman Tony Barton said: “We have our head down working hard and waiting for assays from Kurundi. With proximity to historical holes and previous results from Kurundi Main, I will be surprised if we don’t see some good numbers.”

The company’s drill rig is now on the move to test new geophysical targets generated from last year’s program.

Management has indicated its Tarragans North and South prospects that sit about 30km south-east from the Kurundi Main site will be targeted, with historical workings in the area including the nearby historical Great Davenport mine.

The Tarragans prospects have never been drilled and it appears it may be time to do so in view of high-grade rock chips assaying 23.93g/t and 9.28g/t being discovered at Tarragans South. The company is planning to test the prospect with the hard edge of the drill bit for 12 holes amounting to about 600m.

King River’s Millers prospect, about 20km north-west of Kurundi Main, has recorded a rock-chip sample of 5.03g/t, in addition to several geophysical anomalies deemed to be worthy of testing. Reconnaissance exploration identified significant fault-related hematite-magnetite ironstone, with further rock-chip sampling providing geochemically anomalous values of 0.18g/t gold and elevated levels of bismuth, molybdenum and antimony.

Several geophysical surveys across the Millers ground resulted in coincident chargeability and resistivity anomalies associated with a strong fault and veining zone. Reconnaissance work in 2022 returned an assay of 0.35g/t gold.

A six-hole program for 700m is now planned to test the geophysical anomalies.

The company noted that continued interpretation of its 2023 geophysics program is ongoing for the remaining project areas and further targets are expected to be generated. It plans to drill-test its Kuiper 1 and 2 targets, several Rover East prospects and the Explorer 42 prospect.

All up, King River expects to polish off a 13,500m drill program across its  project areas. A fully-funded drill program across many prospective targets usually adds an air of anticipation and that seems to be wafting through the company’s Top End tenements as we speak.

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