Voyager discovers copper in Mongolia
THE DRILL SERGEANT: Mongolia-focused copper exploration play Voyager Resources has told the market it has made a high-grade copper discovery.
The company announced initial assay results it has received from the first three RC drill holes on the Cughur discovery at its KM copper porphyry project.
The KM Copper gold project is located in the Edrene Island Arc Terrain, which is one of a number of tectonic terrains that extend across the Gobi and southern regions of Mongolia.
Some of these have been proven to host a number of mineralised porphyry systems, including Ivanhoe’s giant Oyu Tolgoi deposit.
Voyager has only carried out a limited amount of exploration over the KM project to date, however the company said it has been highly encouraging by the results it has received so far as they support its belief that KM has the potential to host a significant copper porphyry system.
“The Cughur copper discovery is a fantastic result for Voyager shareholders and rates as some of the best copper drilling results in Mongolia since the discovery of the giant Oyu Tolgoi copper gold deposits,” Voyager Resources said in its announcement to the ASX.
“KM is an exceptional porphyry copper project that has the potential to be a company making asset for Voyager as the company progresses its exploration efforts.”
Drilling at the Cughur discovery has returned highly encouraging results, with all three, 80 metre deep, RC holes ending in high grade copper mineralisation.
The best results from the drilling include:
– 66 metres at 1.48 per cent copper and 5.4 grams per tonne silver from 14 metres to end of hole;
– 50m at 3.51% copper and 10.8 g/t silver from 30m to end of hole; and
– 10m at 4.06% copper and 16.2 g/t silver from 70m to end of hole;
Two of the completed RC holes have recently been extended by diamond core drilling.
Copper mineralisation of varying intensity from these holes has been geologically logged as:
– Strong chalcocite to 86.5 metres with weaker chalcocite and moderate chalcopyrite to 156m depth; and
– Strong chalcocite to 84.0 metres with weaker chalcocite and moderate chalcopyrite to 118m depth.
Voyager currently has three drilling rigs operating on the KM project, with many other targets being drill tested.
To date 40 RC holes and three diamond tail extensions have been completed over four separate prospects for over 4,000 metres of drilling.
Voyager said a number of these drill holes are intersecting porphyry style copper mineralisation over broad intervals.
The company will continue drilling to focus on the Cughur prospect area where it has already intersected mineralised quartz tourmaline breccias greater than 100 metres.
Voyager is well placed to continue the drilling programs with $9.67 million in cash as reported at the end of the June quarter.