Exco confirms 181 per cent copper upgrade at Turpentine
THE DRILL SERGEANT: Exco Resources (ASX:EXS) has completed an updated JORC-compliant resource for the Turpentine copper-gold deposit located north of Cloncurry in Northwest Queensland.
The Turpentine deposit forms part of the company’s Hazel Creek project and was identified as an iron-oxide-copper-gold (IOCG) target by Exco in early 2000.
Northwest Queensland tenement map highlighting Exco’s ground
position and the location of key deposits and prospects. Source: Company
announcement
The upgraded resource has increased the project’s total contained copper to 53,100 tonnes, which is an increase of 181 per cent over the mineral resource Exco previously completed in 2004.
Overall tonnes have increased by over 200 per cent from the 2004 mineral resource estimate to:
– An increase in the total mineral resource to 5.6 million tonnes at 0.94 per cent copper and 0.20 grams per tonne gold for a total of 53,000 tonnes of contained copper; and
– The Indicated mineral resource has increased by 136 per cent to 3.8 million tonnes at 0.92 per cent copper and 0.19g/t gold and the Inferred by 750 per cent to 1.8 million tonnes at 0.98 per cent copper and 0.22g/t gold.
The company said extensional drilling together with geophysics has indicated mineralisation is open at depth and there is potential for further extensions.
“Whilst still early days, this substantial upgrade in contained copper justifies the work that we have completed in the last nine months. Exco Resources managing director Geoff Laing said in the company’s announcement to the Australian Securities Exchange.
“The upgrade supports our confidence in the resource and the Directors view that the Soul Pattison takeover offer undervalues the company and its assets.”
The increase in the Turpentine Resource follows an extensive drill program undertaken in late 2011 and mid-2012.
Since it completed the 2004 resource, Exco has drilled a further 48 holes targeting areas outside the resource which enabled the definition of further mineralisation along strike and down dip up to 140 metres below the lowest intercept.
According to the company the drilling has outlined a steeply dipping zone of coarse grained chalcopyrite mineralisation, hosted within quartz-magnetite-biotite altered intercalated meta-sediments and mafic units.
Three dimensional modelling of the detailed magnetic and gravity data have highlighted an anomaly down dip of the current defined resource and this is further evidence that mineralization is continuing at depth.
Four deep targets have been proposed to test the extent of mineralization at depth. Drilling of the first, and most northern, of these targets has commenced.
