Castillo Copper Ltd (LSE:CCZ, ASX:CCZ)’s focus will pivot to proving up JORC 2012 mineral resources for Big One Deposit in Queensland, BHA East Zone in Broken Hill, New South Wales and Cangai Copper Mine, also in NSW.
Concurrently, subject to upcoming assay and geophysical results, drilling is likely to be progressed at the Arya Prospect in Queensland, as well as the Luanshya and Mkushi Projects in Zambia.
The company also announced some board changes, including the promotion of Dr Dennis Jensen to chief executive officer.
Current focus
Castillo Copper chairman Rob Scott: “The board’s current focus is to expedite modelling up JORC 2012-compliant mineral resources for the Big One Deposit and East Zone within the BHA Project.
“In addition, the NSW’s government’s new critical minerals policy is positive for resuming development of the Cangai Copper Mine, which has an inferred JORC 2012 mineral resource comprising around 108,000 tonnes of contained copper.
“While assays are still pending for the Arya Prospect, the board is optimistic the observed mineralisation is indicative of a potential graphite discovery."
Ambitious exploration agenda
Castillo Copper’s incoming CEO, Dr Dennis Jensen added: “Moving forward, the Board’s objective will be to prove up JORC 2012 resources and further develop the Arya Prospect located in the Mt Isa copper-belt.
“In addition, we expect to have multiple targets to drill-test across the Luanshya and Mkushi Projects in Zambia’s copper-belt.
“This is an excellent opportunity and an ambitious exploration agenda.
“Furthermore, with a high-quality asset portfolio, the board has the potential to create significant incremental value for shareholders.
“Finally, I’d like to thank my former colleague, Mr Simon Paull, for his tireless hard work over the past few years and wish him well with retirement.”
Big One Deposit
With sufficient data from the drilling campaigns undertaken over the past 15 months, which demonstrated extensive shallow copper mineralisation, CCZ’s geology team is now working on modelling up a JORC 2012 mineral resource estimate.
This is anticipated to be finalised during the first quarter of 2022.
Arya Prospect
Initial observations and interpretations highlighted the potential for a graphite discovery and this is subject to confirmation by assays that are still at the laboratory.
Confirmation of a graphite discovery would expand CCZ’s portfolio of rechargeable battery-related minerals, which is timely given the growing demand for electric vehicles globally.
Further exploratory work needs to be undertaken to investigate a sizeable magnetic anomaly – a potential source of base metal mineralisation – which is coincident to the electromagnetic anomaly that was drilled during the fourth quarter of 2021.
NSW government’s new initiative
The NSW government’s new strategy, which targets building a viable downstream industry for processing critical minerals (including cobalt-copper-REEs) and establishing a global supply hub in the state’s central west region (which includes the BHA Project), also includes the Cangai Copper Mine within the critical minerals project list.
This is an encouraging development for both projects and a key catalyst to accelerate work on modelling/updating a JORC 2012 mineral resource, which the board is targeting to complete during the first half of 2022.
East Zone, BHA Project
Further work by CCZ’s geology team has uncovered over 1,500 incremental drill-holes within the tenure that have the potential to contain cobalt mineralisation.
The company is in the process of working through and interpreting this large volume of data and an announcement updating the market of the results of this work will be made in due course.
These additional drill holes complement the 108 drill holes already documented that have cobalt readings ranging from greater than 200ppm cobalt up to 9,500ppm cobalt.
Consequently, CCZ’s geology team is optimistic there is adequate geological data to model up a JORC 2012 mineral resource for cobalt and potentially zinc.
Cangai Copper Mine
Previous work by CCZ’s geology team produced a maiden JORC 2012-compliant inferred mineral resource of 3.2Mt at 3.35% copper implying about 108,000t of contained copper.
As a result of being on the critical minerals list, the geology team will review previous work and use results from drilling undertaken in 2017-18 to update the mineral resource estimate.
Zambia
Work on the Induced Polarisation (IP) campaign at the Mkushi Project is now complete and the results are undergoing review by CCZ’s geophysicist consultant.
The final report and potential targets for test drilling are expected within weeks. The next phase of exploration is set to comprise drilling campaigns across both properties, starting with the Luanshya Project.
Timing is contingent on securing a committed development partner – a number of proposals are currently being reviewed by the board.
New board appointments
Jensen has been working with the CCZ Group since early August 2021 as founding managing director of subsidiary Broken Hill Alliance, which owns a substantial footprint around the world-class Broken Hill zinc-silver-lead deposit.
During this period, Jensen has worked closely with the board to ensure the BHA Project is in good standing ahead of a planned listing on the ASX.
As a result, the board believed it was prudent to promote from within and elevate Jensen to CEO.
Jensen is a former MP, with 12 years experience in federal politics, and was a research scientist with stints at CSIRO and DST (an agency of the Department of Defence).
After leaving politics, Jensen consulted to several mining groups prior to joining the CCZ Group.
Jensen has an excellent understanding of how government private sectors interact, coupled with a first-rate network.
His appointment takes effect from 1 February 2022.
To strengthen management’s geological expertise, Geoff Reed has been promoted to executive director, with effect from 1 February 2022.
He will take on a more hands-on roll with the geology work, particularly in NSW where he resides.
Leveraging Reed’s expertise is timely, with the NSW critical minerals strategy providing impetus to ramp up exploration activities across the BHA Project and Cangai Copper Mine.
Scott added: “They will assume responsibility for executing the board’s revised strategic intent to prove up JORC 2012 mineral resources while continuing to develop the Arya Prospect.
“They take over from Mr Simon Paull who is retiring, effective February 1, after building up an excellent platform during his tenure with the group.”