Middle Island gets $300,000 boost to rev up drilling plans

Middle Island Resources has secured the maximum $300,000 grant from the Northern Territory Government, which the company says is an endorsement of the significant targets at its Barkly copper-gold “super-project” in the Top End.

Management says the co-funded payment will enable the first-round testing of a spread of iron oxide-copper-gold (IOCG) targets at its Georgina project and one deep diamond-hole at its sediment-hosted Bedrock prospect within the Barkly ground. The funding was granted under the latest round of the NT Government’s geophysics and drilling collaborations (GDC) program.

The scheme is funded by the government’s “Resourcing the Territory” initiative and administered by the NT Geological Survey.

The funding is split into two separate grants. One is for up to $125,000 to co-fund the drilling of three diamond holes at the company’s Wilma, Pebbles and Dino prospects at its Georgina IOCG project near Tennant Creek, while the other $175,000 will be made available for one deep diamond hole to target sediment-hosted copper-zinc-lead-silver at the Barkly project, which sits east of Georgina.

Middle Island Resources chief executive officer Roland Bartsch said: “This is a competitive program and to be the only company to have received the maximum grant allowed is an endorsement of the concepts and targets developed by the team’s systematic approach. Further, it is broader recognition of the potential of this significantly underexplored region.”

The targets are based on the company’s interpretation and modelling of geophysical gravity survey data. Southern Geoscience Consultants conducted 3D gravity-inversion modelling last year on eight priority targets, with several dense anomalies of various shapes and sizes being detected and considered similar to those of target deposit types.

The eight targets range in depths between 230m and 550m and Middle Island plans to initially focus on the shallower deposits in the upcoming drill program. It has also been able to progress six target areas to “prospect” status to complement its established Crosswinds deposit.

Management says all of its drill targets are “blind” and lie beneath post-mineralisation cover and have the potential to represent sizeable mineral deposits.

Middle Island has a combined 6918 square kilometres of landholding in the region near Tennant Creek across its two prospective projects – Barkly and Georgina. The East Tennant Ridge corridor runs through part of its ground and has recently gained recognition as a largely-unexplored IOCG mineral province with similarities to the Cloncurry district, which hosts Evolution Mining’s monster Ernest Henry deposit and the South Australia Gawler Craton operations that include BHP’s colossal Olympic Dam.

Middle Island has prospective ground in the region and with the NT Government stumping up half the drilling costs, that may just be the helping-hand the company needs to prove it is sitting on a couple of viable projects.

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