Emmerson Resources Ltd’s (ASX:ERM) future in the Northern Territory looks golden on the back of an extended joint venture with Tennant Consolidated Mining Group (TCMG) and a 3.95 metres at 57 g/t gold hit at its Mauretania Project within the Northern Project Area of Tennant Creek.
Together, Emmerson and TCMG will now advance exploration across the northern and southern sections of the Tennant Creek Mineral Field, bringing Emmerson’s gold and copper assets a step closer to production.
Map of the Emmerson Tennant Creek Project showing the Northern Project (NPA) and Southern Project (SPA) areas.
Situated in the Northern Territory, Tennant Creek is lauded as one of Australia’s highest-grade gold and copper assets.
The company currently boasts a 1,800-square-kilometre landholding within the field.
Emmerson believes the strategic alliance with TCMG establishes a funded pathway for the development of its high-grade gold projects and provides substantial new funding for exploration to build and advance the resource pipeline.
Emmerson managing director Rob Bills said the partnership extension came as TCMG established its track record and proved to be “a valuable partner” in the field providing access to capital, mining and production expertise which complemented Emmerson’s strong exploration and discovery track record.
In an interview with Proactive, Bills said the key aspect about the consolidation was the fact that it would put more money into future exploration.
He said: “We have $5.5 million going into the Northern Project Area and this announcement will see a further $5 million going into the Southern Project Area.
“So, a total of $10.5 million that TCMG is paying us…as part of their earn-in.
“Hopefully, this means more discoveries down the track.”
More recently, the company returned a bonanza-grade gold intersection from the first diamond hole in a sparsely drilled primary gold zone at Mauretania.
The precious metals explorer discovered a 3.95-metre intersection grading 57 g/t gold, 0.22% bismuth, 20.6 g/t silver and 0.23% copper from 207 metres in hole MTDD010 at the greenfields discovery.
This result included 1-metre at 102 g/t gold, 47 g/t silver and 0.23% copper and 0.8 metres at 135.5 g/t gold, 40.2 g/t silver and 0.6% bismuth.
Bills said: “The really big thing is that this is the first time we’ve seen such high-grade mineralisation in the primary zone.
“All previous drilling has been in the upper oxide zone, which is the subject of open-pit optimisation studies at the moment – then we’ve got the copper zone and then the primary zone.”
He said the next steps include awaiting assay results from the oxide zone (targeted for July-August) before further drilling in the oxide and primary zone commences.
Upcoming activities
The company has prioritised the following activities for the September quarter:
- Completion of drilling and assay results from the 1,700-metre program at Mauretania, Tennant Creek;
- Reverse circulation drilling for shallow oxide gold mineralisation at Black Snake, Tennant Creek;
- Completion of the Ultra High Resolution drone magnetic survey over Mauretania and the Southern Project Area at Tennant Creek;
- Continuation of advanced mine studies, including reporting of JORC resource estimates on Mauretania, Chariot, Black Snake and Malbec West;
- Further baseline studies at Mauretania and Chariot including flora and fauna surveys;
- Commencement of drilling at Jasper Hills – subject to receiving the Variation Agreement from the AAPA; and
- Finalisation of 3D models and drill targets for Kiola copper-gold NSW.
Ultra-high resolution drone magnetic survey
Emmerson is applying new technology to make discoveries based on the exploration learnings built after more than a decade operating in the Tennant Creek Mineral Field.
Accordingly, an Ultra High Resolution Drone magnetic survey is underway over the Southern Project Area. The resolution of this survey is far superior to historic, fixed wing surveys due to the drone being able to fly 15m above the ground and on 10m spaced lines.
Results will be used to inform future drill targeting at Tennant Creek.
NSW: hunting for large porphyry deposits
Kiola is one of Emmerson’s five early-stage copper-gold projects in the highly endowed Molong geological belt of the Macquarie Arc in NSW.
First pass diamond drilling within the prospective 15-square-kilometre Kiola Geochemical Zone (KGZ) has confirmed potential for further gold and base metals at the Nasdaq skarn and also the possibility of deeper copper-gold associated with an underlying porphyry system.
A large 3D MIMDAS geophysical survey has generated several potential targets that are planned to be drill tested in late 2021, subject to COVID restrictions and drill rig availability.