Breakaway Resources advancing Cloncurry portfolio
THE CONFERENCE CALLER: Breakaway Resources (ASX: BRW) managing director Victor Rajasooriar used his presentation at the 2013 Australian Copper Conference to tell the audience how the company is advancing the discovery and development of high-quality standalone mineral deposits within the Cloncurry Mineral District of North West Queensland.
The bulk of the company’s current exploration activities are centred on its 100 per cent-owned Eloise exploration project where recent exploration activities have identified a copper – gold system at the Sandy Creek prospect and a pipeline of additional priority drill targets throughout the surrounding project area.
Source: Company presentation
The Eloise exploration project is a 510 square kilometre landholding, located in the Cloncurry District of Queensland.
Breakaway completed a diamond drilling program at Sandy Creek in November 2012, and subsequently reported an updated Mineral Resource estimate for the deposit in February this year.
This updated Inferred Resource comprises 2 million tonnes grading 1.32 per cent copper and 0.3 grams per tonne gold for 26,400 tonnes of contained copper and 21,400 ounces of contained gold.
“The Eloise exploration area is in a very well-endowed mineral district,” Rajasooriar told the conference.
“In the first six months of this year we have had some success, even though we are a junior with very little cash, we carried out some reasonable programs
“We did a ground based EM program at Eloise, which identified two new targets straight away, and these were very strong conductors.
“At the same time we conducted some heritage surveys, which included the new targets at our Sandy Creek deposit that we are planning to grow in to bigger results, so we have cleared that area for the next drilling program.”
Other strings to the Breakaway bow include a strategic partnership with Sandfire Resources over the Broader Altia project JV, located 70km south-east of Cloncurry in north-west Queensland, which Rajasooriar said provides the company with value for the Altia deposit.
Under the terms of the partnership agreement Sandfire is required to spend $4 million to earn a 60 per cent interest in the project over three years, followed by an option to spend an additional $4 million to earn a further 20 per cent.
Exploration activities already conducted at the Broader Altia JV has identified a number of targets, including Boralis, Capricorn, Coral Reef and Altia West.
Heritage surveys have been completed and drill pads ready for drilling scheduled to commence in July 2013.
The project has an Inferred Resource of 5.8 million tonnes at 4 per cent lead, 0.5 per cent zinc and 40g/t silver for 229,000 tonnes of lead, 29,000 tonnes of zinc and 7.5 million ounces of silver.
In other work Breakaway has completed some soil geochemistry at the Leinster gold project in Western Australia, which identified a number of drill-ready targets the company is planning to drill in the September quarter.
In what is currently, a very tight market, Breakaway was also able to sell the Scotia tenements north of Kalgoorlie to Minotaur Exploration (ASX: MEP) for $600,000.
“The Scotia tenement is prospective for gold,” Rajasooriar said.
“We owned the tenements but we only had 20 per cent of the gold rights – and that is what we are selling to Minotaur Exploration.”
Still in WA Breakaway has been able renegotiate some pre-emptive and claw-back rights involved with Norilsk Nickel.
“We have dissolved those clauses and have exchanged them for a 2.5 per cent Net Smelter Return.
“What that does now is it gives us more opportunities to go and do something with our nickel tenements in Leinster.
“We are also pursuing other opportunities for our non-core assets.
“Some of these are being sold at the moment and we are looking for other options with our Leinster and West Kambalda nickel assets as well.”