Corazon Mining Advancing Two World Class Projects

THE INSIDE STORY: Corazon Mining (ASX: CZN) is developing a large-scale nickel sulphide project and an emerging development opportunity in the cobalt space. 

Corazon Mining’s projects are the Lynn Lake nickel sulphide project in Manitoba Province, Canada, and the Mt Gilmore cobalt project in northern News South Wales.

“Mt Gilmore is more a pure play cobalt sulphide asset, while Lynn Lake is potentially a large-scale nickel sulphide dominant project, with copper and cobalt within the system,” Corazon Mining managing director Brett Smith told The Resources Roadhouse.

The priority target is the Cobalt Ridge deposit where a recent soil geochemistry program identified new zones of cobalt mineralisation, leading to the announcement Phase 2 metallurgical testwork, starting with a program of resource definition drilling.

Core samples for metallurgical testing are expected to be delivered to the laboratory in early September.

The soil-sampling program extended coverage at Cobalt Ridge to an area of approximately two kilometres by one kilometre with results validating historical geochemistry and confirming the presence of multiple zones of cobalt and copper mineralisation over a significant area.

A maiden 18 hole drill program targeting Cobalt Ridge, completed in 2016, validated the extent of existing cobalt-copper-gold mineralisation and confirmed multiple zones of cobalt sulphide mineralisation.

Mineralisation remains open along strike to the west and at depth.
 
Average cobalt grades in this drilling were between 0.23 per cent and 0.65 per cent cobalt, with a best individual one metre assay of 2.79 per cent cobalt and multiple higher grade zones of up to 1.48 per cent cobalt.

First phase metallurgical testwork, completed in the first quarter this year, highlighted the project’s commercial development potential.

Initial flotation testing delivered cobalt recoveries of 92.2 per cent (89% copper and 75.5% gold) in a total concentrate with 11.1 per cent mass recovery, and produced a cobalt concentrate of 7.38 per cent cobalt (1.29% copper and 4.1g/t gold).

Optimisation is anticipated to achieve even stronger results, with potential for higher grade cobalt concentrate of 12.2 per cent to be produced from just 1.31 per cent of the initial feed mass – translating to reductions in CAPEX and OPEX for any future mining operation at Mt Gilmore.

Corazon is preparing the next stage of field work at Mt Gilmore to target new zones of cobalt mineralisation discovered at Cobalt Ridge.

The next phase of drilling will have dual priorities of defining a maiden Resource and identifying new zones of cobalt mineralisation – drilling to date has tested only 200m of strike, highlighting the project’s discovery potential.

“Our end goal is to produce a quality cobalt product for use in the rechargeable battery sector, and investigate opportunities to supply other high value cobalt products, and the outcomes of the next phase of work will start to bring this goal into a clearer focus,” Smith said.

At the Lynne Lake project, Corazon is targeting new, large Lynn Lake-style nickel sulphide discoveries within the Fraser Lake Complex, 5kms south of the Lynn Lake mining centre.

Corazon completed extensive geophysical and geochemical targeting work, consisting three phases of drilling at Fraser Lake in 2017, resulting in the discovery of a large magmatic sulphide system with the potential to host nickel-copper sulphide deposits.

“All holes in the Phase 3 drilling were extensively mineralised for the entire length-of-hole and nickel and copper-bearing sulphides are observed throughout the drill core, and we continue to intersect Lynn Lake-mine grade mineralisation in drilling, but we are yet to drill that ‘new discovery’ hole – so the work goes on,” Smith said.

The next step at Lynn Lake is to analyse all exploration results and plan for the next field season.

With the completion of the northern winter exploration program at Lynn Lake in Canada, Corazon’s focus will shift to NSW.

This change in focus has coincided with an increase in the cobalt metal price to around US$60,000 per tonne.

As a component within lithium-ion batteries and with battery makers actively seeking long-term ethically sourced cobalt, Corazon is focused on the rapid establishment of Cobalt Ridge’s development potential.

All work at Cobalt Ridge is structured towards defining resource potential and down-stream processing options and will be the company’s major focus over the next six months at least.

Corazon Mining Limited (ASX: CZN)
…The Short Story

HEAD OFFICE
Level 1
350 Hay Street
Subiaco WA  6008

Ph: +61 8 6364 0518   
Fax: +61 8 6210 1872

Email: info@corazon.com.au
Web: www.corazon.com.au

DIRECTORS
Clive Jones, Brett Smith, Jonathon Downes, Adrian Byass