Peel Mining Enjoying Longer Southern Nights

THE INSIDE STORY: Peel Mining is primary focus is the Wagga Tank-Southern Nights project in New South Wales.

Peel has been exploring for high-grade base metals in the Cobar Basin for around eight years, where it has made three greenfield discoveries: Mallee Bull, Wirlong, and Southern Nights.

A fourth discovery, Wagga Tank is a rediscovery as such, as it had been found before the company arrived but had been neglected for nearly three decades.

“We started calling the Cobar Basin home after making the Mallee Bull discovery,” Peel Mining managing director Rob Tyson told The Resources Roadhouse.

“We have completed over 160 kilometres of drilling since listing and in the last financial year alone, we were probably close to doing 50 kilometres of drilling.

“That has been fundamental to us making discoveries.”

Peel followed a trail of historic drilling and prospecting results into the Cobar Basin left by earlier explorers.

At Wagga Tank, a study of historical data included 42 drill holes, revealing 24 with potential economic drill intercepts.

Discovered in the 1970s, no work had been carried out on the Wagga Tank deposit since 1989.

Discoveries made by Peel in the Cobar Basin, include the advanced Mallee Bull copper-polymetallic deposit, a 50:50 Joint Venture with CBH Resources.

It contains a JORC compliant Mineral Resource Estimate of 6.76 million tonnes at 1.8 per cent copper, 31 grams per tonne silver, 0.4g/t gold, 0.6 per cent lead and 0.6 per cent zinc (2.6% copper equivalent) containing approximately 119,000 tonnes of copper, 6.6 million ounces silver, 83,000 ounces gold, 38,000 tonnes lead and 38,000 tonnes zinc (175,000t copper equivalent) (using a 1% copper equivalent cutoff).

Pre-Feasibility Study work at Mallee Bull has investigated the conceptual development of the Silver Ray lens (formerly T1) as a ‘dig and truck’ operation, where ore would be milled at CBH’s Endeavor mine approximately 150km away, where surplus milling capacity exists.

The JV partners believe staged mining development of the Mallee Bull deposit could substantially reduce total capital expenditure.

The Wirlong deposit, discovered in 2015, is part of the Cobar Superbasin Project that is subject to a Memorandum of Agreement with Japan Oil, Gas, and Metals National Corporation (JOGMEC).

Wirlong has returned many important drill results in recent times, including:

WLRC015
4.9 metres at 4.3 per cent copper, 13g/t silver from 402.1m and 22m at 1 per cent copper, 4g/t silver from 332m;

WLDD001
9m at 8 per cent copper, 17 g/t silver, 0.21g/t gold from 616m and 38m at 1.18 per cent copper, 4g/t silver from 450m;

WLRCDD024
26m at 1.21 per cent copper, 5g/t silver from 227m and 10m at 1.01 per cent copper, 4g/t silver from 288m;

WLRC026
27m at 5.3 per cent copper, 23g/t silver from 286m and 9m at 1.27 per cent copper, 4g/t silver from 255m;

WLRCDD028
9m at 1.29 per cent copper, 7g/t silver from 412m and 19m at 1.36 per cent copper, 6g/t silver from 432m;

WLRCDD043
17m at 4.59 per cent copper, 8g/t silver from 738m;

WLRC052
31m at 3.19 per cent copper, 11g/t silver from 299m; and

WLRC035
9m at 3.29 per cent copper, 18g/t silver from 70m.

“Mallee Bull sits atop our project pyramid followed by Wagga Tank/Southern Nights, then Wirlong in terms of how advanced each is,” Tyson said.

“However, our 100 per cent-owned Wagga Tank/Southern Nights has surpassed Mallee Bull in terms of importance to the company.”

Peel announced discovery of the high-grade zinc-lead-silver Southern Nights in October 2017 then followed up with a succession of strong drilling results confirming it as one of Australia’s most important zinc polymetallic discoveries.

“From historic data, we noticed a near surface oxide gold zone, beneath which there is some supergene copper, gold and silver,” Tyson said.

“But the primary mineralisation that caught our attention was the deeper zinc-lead-silver rich massive sulphide.

“At the end of an 18-hole program validating the historical results, we had around 300 metres of strike and a system defined to 350 metres below surface and open in all directions.

“The alteration and mineralisation in the drill core indicated, however, that it was likely to be a much larger system that initially thought.

“That led us to carry out further exploration, primarily geophysics conducting aeromag, surface EM, IP and gravity surveys that lead us to Southern Nights.”

Recent drilling produced high-grade mineralised intercepts at Southern Nights, and from the intervening zone between Wagga Tank and Southern Nights.

Most importantly, the drilling confirmed the Wagga Tank and Southern Nights deposits to be linked together, essentially as parts of one large mineral system.

Drillhole WTRCDD123 returned a strongly mineralised intercept confirming the link between Wagga Tank and Southern Nights of:

14.45m at 2.43 per cent copper, 2.67 grams per tonne gold, 123g/t silver, 2.58 per cent zinc, 0.87 per cent lead from 435.55m.

The copper-gold mineralisation intercepted in WTRCDD123 indicates possible metal zonation within the Wagga Tank-Southern Nights mineral system, a common feature of Cobar-style deposits.

The mineralisation remains open in all directions including up-dip.

Positive news from Southern Nights continued as drilling testing at deeper levels at Southern Nights and in the Wagga Tank-Southern Nights corridor encountered critical host stratigraphic units, with mineralisation observed in all drillholes.

Follow-up drilling at two other prospects associated with the Wagga Tank-Southern Nights corridor also returned positive results.

Drilling at the Fenceline prospect encountered mineralisation which remains open along strike and down-dip while first-pass drilling at The Bird prospect, located about 1.5km north of Fenceline, returned anomalous geochemistry confirming base metal mineralisation associated with the chargeable geophysical IP target.

Assays for Southern Nights returned:

WTRCDD075
13.1m at 5.49 per cent zinc, 1.53 per cent lead, 0.39 per cent copper, 31g/t silver, 0.5g/t gold from 259.8m;

WTRCDD106
46.4m at 3.91 per cent zinc, 1.51 per cent lead, 60g/t silver, 0.17g/t gold from 227.6m, including 18.9m at 7 per cent zinc, 2.74 per cent lead, 112g/t silver, 0.35g/t gold from 227.6m;

WTRCDD108
11.9m at 3.02 per cent zinc, 1.39 per cent lead, 203g/t silver from 240m, including 7.4m at 4.88 per cent zinc, 2.08 per cent lead, 311g/t silver from 241m; and

WTRCDD122
42.45m at 1 per cent copper, 18g/t silver, 0.35g/t gold, 0.3 per cent zinc, 0.14 per cent lead from 483.55m, including 10m at 1.94 per cent copper, 30g/t silver, 0.61g/t gold, 0.14 per cent zinc, 0.13 per cent lead from 496m.

Follow-up drilling at Fenceline returned:

TBRC029
8m at 6.29 per cent lead, 33g/t silver, 0.94g/t gold from 94m;

TBRC030
6m at 2.62 per cent lead, 18g/t silver, 1.76g/t gold from 97m; and

TBRC033
3m at 5.41 per cent zinc, 2.78 per cent lead, 0.25 per cent copper, 43g/t silver, 0.15g/t gold from 159m.

“There is now two kilometres of strike from the top of Wagga Tank to the bottom of Southern Nights,” Tyson said.

“It is open at depth, open north and south and is located on the Western side of the Cobar Basin where we believe some major structures exist that are feeding the system.

“Everything we have seen to date indicates this is a Cobar-style system, so we are hopeful it will have that long vertical planer continuation these types of systems usually display.

“More importantly, it displays camp-scale mineralisation along two-kilometres of strike, making it a large-scale system.”

 

Peel Mining Ltd. (ASX: PEX)
… The Short Story

HEAD OFFICE
Unit 1
34 Kings Park Road
West Perth WA 6005

Ph: (08) 9382 3955

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

DIRECTORS
Rob Tyson, Simon Hadfield, Graham Hardie