Carpentaria to spend up big on exploration
THE BOURSE WHISPERER: Emerging resources house Carpentaria Exploration has announced it will be spending over $3.5 million on greenfields exploration in the 2011/12 financial year.
The impressive figure will allow the company to it continue its aggressive exploration programs across eastern Australia.
Excluding pre-development expenditure at the company’s flagship Hawsons iron project the budget includes provision for over 3,000 metres of RC and diamond drilling.
This drilling will be testing already defined targets across five, wholly owned Carpentaria projects in the Broken Hill and Lachlan Fold Belt regions of New South Wales in addition to surface prospecting.
The company said the budget commitment follows on from it having been granted a number of new exploration licences and negotiation of access arrangements in key exploration provinces.
“The Company is focused on further discoveries following its successes at Hawsons and Euriowie,” Carpentaria Resources executive chairman, Nick Sheard said in the company’s ASX announcement.
“Carpentaria is committed to exploration, and the large budget for this year confirms our determination to become a miner as quickly as possible.
“May’s announcement of a successful Pre-feasibility Study at Hawsons, where we have identified a potential large-scale iron ore project with a base case net present value estimated at $2.8 billion dollars, shows the benefit of our committed approach.
“However, we are determined to be more than a one-project company and will maintain a strong and diversified project pipeline in eastern Australia.”
A major focus for Carpentaria for the new financial year will be the six recently granted exploration licences covering some 1,800 square kilometres and located 160 kilometres north of Broken Hill at the Koonenberry nickel project.
Three prospects identified from analysis of the $5 million previously spent on exploration in the area by Inco/Vale will be drill tested as soon as possible in 2011.
High priority prospects on the Koonenberry tenement package include Mt Arrowsmith East, where a past sulphide bearing drill intersection of 22 metres at 0.23% nickel and 0.18% copper was recorded.
Carpentaria expects State Government granting of access at the Temora gold project in the Lachlan Fold Belt to allow drilling at the Mother Shipton porphyry gold-copper prospect this year.
More than 30,000 ounces of gold was historically mined from Mother Shipton.
Shallow historical drill intersections including 4m at 3.95 grams per tonne gold from 2m and 6m at 2.35g/t gold from 38m are yet to be followed up.
“Mother Shipton is a quality gold-copper prospect within the regionally prospective Parkes-Narromine geological belt of the world class Lachlan Fold Belt Province,” Sheard said.
“The former Gidginbung mine produced around 700,000 ounces of gold and is only 10 kilometres along strike to the north of Mother Shipton.
“We are hoping access can be finalised shortly to enable the commencement of exploration.”
Elsewhere in the Broken Hill area, Carpentaria is progressing its strategy of identifying a cluster of shallow tin and tungsten resources suitable for low cost extraction.