Cobalt Blue Holdings Ltd (ASX:COB, OTC:CBBHF) has enhanced its long-term exploration strategy targeting the discovery and delineation of cobalt mineralisation by increasing its footprint in the Broken Hill area of Far West New South Wales by 35%.
The pure-play cobalt company has been granted Exploration Licence 9254 that now forms part of a broader tenement holding comprising five Exploration Licences and two Mining Leases, for a total area of around 220 square kilometres.
Potential to complement inventory
Since January 2021, COB has added two new ELs to the tenement portfolio within proximity to existing cobalt resources and to the traditional mining stronghold of Broken Hill.
The consolidated package has the potential to complement the existing mineral resource inventory and proprietary processing pathway of the Broken Hill Cobalt Project (BHCP).
“Long-term exploration potential”
COB’s CEO Joe Kaderavek said: “The growth in the company’s tenement portfolio reflects a considered step toward securing long-term exploration potential to complement development of the Broken Hill Cobalt Project.
"Having now established a strong resource base we look forward to applying this blueprint in our future targeting.”
Shares have been as much as 14% higher intraday to A$0.33.
BHCP location approximately 25 kilometres southwest of Broken Hill.
Since 2016, COB has completed 30,000 metres of drilling to define the Pyrite Hill, Big Hill and Railway deposits within the BHCP.
Known collectively as the Broken Hill cobalt deposits, these were the subject of a recent mineral resource estimate comprising 118 million tonnes at 859 ppm cobalt-equivalent (687 ppm cobalt, 7.6% sulphur and 133 ppm nickel) for 81,100 tonnes of contained cobalt.
Cobalt a strategic metal
Cobalt is a strategic metal in strong demand for new generation batteries, particularly lithium-ion batteries now being widely used in clean energy systems.
The Broken Hill Cobalt Project is in a deformed and metamorphosed Proterozoic supracrustal rock succession named the Willyama Supergroup which outcrops as a series of basement inliers known in the Olary–Broken Hill region, as the Willyama Inliers.
The Willyama Supergroup hosts most metalliferous occurrences in the region, including the giant Broken Hill Lead-Sinc-Silver orebody.
Of the greater Willyama Supergroup, the BHCP covers portions of the Broken Hill and Thackaringa Group successions with the latter hosting the BHCP cobaltiferous pyrite deposits.
The COB group tenement holding comprising approximately 220 square kilometres.
EL9254 and EL9139 are about 35 kilometres southwest of Broken Hill and in part adjoin the BHCP.
The tenements are generally bound by the Mundi Mundi Fault to the east and are dominated by shallow Cenozoic cover sequences interpretedly underlain by successions of the Willyama Supergroup including the Thackaringa Group.
Initial work plans
Similar to areas of the Broken Hill Domain characterised by extensive outcrop, EL9254 and EL9139 have been subject to little historical exploration.
Compilation and validation of these works will form an initial focus for the COB exploration team.
In addition, data obtained from an Airborne Electromagnetic (‘AEM’) survey, jointly commissioned by the Department of Regional NSW’s Geological Survey and Geoscience Australia in April, is expected to be released in the current quarter.
The heliborne survey was flown on east-west orientated flight lines at an average spacing of 2.5 kilometres across EL9254 and will be used by COB to refine future exploration activities for the tenement.