Recent soil sampling at Rockfire Resources PLC’s (LON:ROCK) Copper Dome project in Queensland, Australia has returned more high-grade copper and gold results.
Rockfire has the option to acquire the project, although a decision one way or the other must be made by tomorrow (23 May).
READ: Soil sampling at Cardigan Dam yields promising results for Rockfire
Back in March, the company began an extension soil survey at Copper Dome, which saw it collect 108 sample over an area of 510,000 square metres.
The purpose of the extension was to test the land south of where Rockfire collected “strongly anomalous” soil samples earlier in the year.
The firm said today that anomalous copper and gold results have been returned from the soils, including grades of up to 0.11% copper and 0.15 parts per million of gold.
The copper anomaly extended 500m south from the previous survey, and the anomaly remains open to the east and west.
Results ‘very pleasing’
“These soil sample results are very pleasing,” said chief executive David Price.
“The copper appears to adhere to the margins of the mapped porphyry, whilst the gold forms an impressive east-west trend precisely at the contact point between the two porphyries as mapped.
“Our exploration to date at Copper Dome has included preliminary geological mapping, prospect-scale rock sampling and comprehensive soil sampling over the known outcrops of the intrusions.
“This exploration has returned very high-grade copper-in-rock samples, medium level copper-in-soil values and low-level gold-in-soil assays. Importantly, this work has resulted in the delineation of clear geochemical targets.”
As for the decision on whether or not to acquire the project, Price said the market will be updated in due course.
2019 shaping up to be ‘particularly prosperous’
In an earlier announcement, Rockfire released its full-year results.
Chairman Gordon Hart said it had been a “successful” 2018 following last summer’s boardroom upheaval, during which he and chief executive Price took their seats at the table.
The company carried out an “aggressive exploration program” during the year, including four drilling campaigns at its Double Event, Plateau and Marengo projects.
“The year ahead is looking particularly prosperous, with much of the administrative matters now complete and having access to so much highly-prospective ground,” said Hart.
For the year ended 31 December 2018, Rockfire made a loss of £2.02mln (2017: £0.38mln). It ended the period with £0.30mln of cash in the bank (2017: £1.26mln), although a £500,000 placing in January means that figure will be higher now.
Rockfire shares were down 6.7% to 0.7p on Wednesday afternoon.