ONE OFF THE WOOD: Apollo Minerals (ASX: AON) has acquired a 70 per cent interest in the Orpheus base metals JV project with Enterprise Metals (ASX: ENT) in the Fraser Range minerals province in Western Australia with the intention to explore for major nickel and base metal deposits in the project area.
The project area consists of four tenements covering 600 square kilometres where Enterprise has identified four priority exploration target areas: at the Plato, Heart, Highway and McPhersons prospects. Other highly ranked anomalies exist and remain untested at this stage.
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Apollo Minerals chairman Richard Shemesian dropped by The Roadhouse to provide some details on the project.
Richard, Apollo, by way of its JV with Enterprise Metals is about to take up residence in the hottest exploration address in the country, a couple of doors down from Sirius Resources (ASX: SIR) in the Fraser Range of Western Australia.
It is exciting. Apollo has been looking for an opportunity just like Orpheus to come up in this area for quite some time, but that belt, especially the high gravity zone, is already highly-populated and tightly-held.
Apollo is looking forward to moving in and progressing exploration to unveil value from the properties.
It’s all well and good to find an ‘in’ to the Fraser Range, but it is also important to have found the right project?
That’s right. We looked at a lot of projects in the area, but we wanted to be in the Main Zone, that is the belt containing the high density rocks, which is the most prospective.
We have kept an eye on the area, and obviously it was very hot after Sirius announced its Nova discovery in 2012 and subsequently Bollinger in 2013. The area has a lot to offer.
Since then, of course, the market has been difficult so the region has been on a simmer, but we feel our timing has been impeccable in terms of the action that is currently happening out there.
It’s our understanding that private groups are spending big amounts – rumoured to be around $1 million a month – and Sirius is now carrying out quite a lot of drilling down at its Crux prospect.
The Orpheus prospect is situated directly between Sirius’ Nova deposit and Crux so we will be taking keen interest in the results from there, because if they make any sort of discovery at Crux it will also be a great result for us.
The Sirius fairy-tale of hitting the big time with perceived little effort has placed a bit of expectation on companies who are also in the area, with investors expecting similar results?
There is no doubt Sirius has provided investors a lot of excitement in relation to the area, but we understand it is going to take a lot of money and a lot of hard work and expertise to find these deeper ore bodies.
You have to be in the right area and that’s one we have ticked off. Then you have to go out and do the work and then you need to have people with the right expertise.
The advantage we have is the make-up of our Board, which includes people like Eric Finlayson a former head of Rio Tinto exploration world-wide.
Eric is a representative of HPX which is an exploration group indirectly controlled by Robert Friedland.
Apollo is also involved in the Commonwealth Hill IOCG Joint Venture project in the Gawler Craton with High Power Exploration (HPX) to explore for IOCG deposits.
Under the JV HPX will provide state of the art technologies and expertise to explore for IOCG’s across Apollo’s 100 per cent-held tenements.
HPX has made an initial equity investment in AON. Under the JV, HPX has the right to earn 80 per cent via payment of $3.4 million in two phases.
Your exploration activities aren’t just focused on the Fraser Range, you’re also still very busy with your South Australian projects. There are probably a lot less companies doing as much work on the ground than Apollo at present?
We have received a lot of market recognition and support from HPX and Robert Friedland by declaring our exploration focus is to find large deposits.
This is where the interest lies in discovering IOCG -type deposits in the world-class, top tier terrains – Olympic Dam is in that category.
HPX is looking for that type of target, which is why we are working together in South Australia to find that IOCG discovery.
The Gawler Craton is the sort of territory you are likely to find such a deposit – they’re not easy to find, you need a serious amount of cash, hard work and perseverance.
Is that what you’re hoping to find in the Fraser Range?
We have seen world-class nickel projects emerge in the Fraser Range and that is what we looking for, rather than a small project the market would not be interested in. We really want to develop a major project.
That’s another aspect that distinguishes us from other explorers. It’s easy to say a company is exploring, but what are they actually exploring for?
I hope we have made it clear in our announcements to the market that we’re not looking for small things – we are looking for world-class projects.
What was it about the Orpheus project that raised the flag for Apollo?
Firstly, it is in the right geological setting – in the Fraser Range Mafic Complex – our experts are of the opinion this area is where there are going to be more massive sulphide nickel discoveries.
Secondly the acquisition of quality data set. Enterprise Metals has already spent over $2.5 million on exploration and just on 4,000 metres of drilling, from which they have identified nickel and copper anomalies at surface, and have also had success in hitting nickel sulphides. Apollo has had similar results in South Australia but not to the same extent. The exploration coverage and targets identified provide a platform to launch exploration with more drill testing of priority target areas.
I don’t think the market has given Enterprise the credit they deserve, however I think what Enterprise has realised is that it is better to Joint Venture these projects with companies that have funding and strong partners.
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