Artemis Resources Ltd (ASX:ARV) has started building its cobalt-copper-gold resources at the Carlow Castle project in Western Australia’s Pilbara region.
The company has received its first Carlow Castle resource from Quod Est deposit and expects the next resource from the larger Carlow Castle South deposit by the end of the month.
Quod Est contains 557,000 tonnes at 1.0 g/t gold, 0.2% cobalt and 0.5% copper.
This comprises an indicated resource of 343,100 tonnes at the same grades and an inferred resource of circa 214,000 tonnes at 0.6 g/t gold, 0.1% cobalt and 0.3% copper.
Drilling returns up to 1.94% cobalt
Recent drilling at Quod Est has returned up to 6 metres at 1.94% cobalt, 4.14 g/t gold and 1.67% copper.
The deposit remains open at depth.
Artemis aims to have Carlow Castle ready and available to provide plant feed for its Radio Hill plant from July 2018.
Carlow Castle is only 30 kilometres from the Radio Hill processing plant, which is being refurbished.
Company seeks mining leases
Work has started on converting the portion of the exploration licence covering the deposits to mining leases.
Diamond drilling is planned to allow geotechnical analysis for open pit planning purposes as well as advanced metallurgical recovery optimisation and plant operating cost planning.
This is expected to begin by the end of this month.
Further targets identified
The company’s latest geochemistry program covering 50 square kilometres has also identified a large number of new high priority cobalt-gold-copper targets ready for drilling.
Upgrade works at the Radio Hill plant are progressing well.
Artemis aims to have the planned works, including the addition of a 70-100 tonne per hour gravity gold recovery circuit, completed and fully operational by the end of June 2018.
It is also undertaking studies to increase the overall annual capacity of the plant to over 1 million tonnes.
The company is also seeking a dual listing of its securities on the most senior stock exchange available to it in Canada.