Castillo Copper Ltd (LSE:CCZ, ASX:CCZ) has confirmed the presence of high-grade platinum as well as further gold and cobalt around Iron Blow Prospect of the Broken Hill Alliance (BHA) Project’s East Zone in Far West New South Wales.
Prospective for iron oxide copper-gold (IOCG) style mineralisation, the East Zone has also revealed copper, zinc and lead elements. The best platinum samples from surface sampling around Iron Blow included:
- 3.7 g/t platinum;
- 1.45 g/t platinum;
- 2.2 g/t platinum and 6.1 g/t gold; and
- 2.9 g/t platinum.
Base metal and cobalt samples returned up to 12% copper, 2,500 parts per million (ppm) zinc, 9,400 ppm lead and 350 ppm cobalt.
Castillo Copper’s geology team is re-testing up to six mineralised sections at the NSW core library, testing for platinum group elements, base metal and cobalt in previous drill intersections from Iron Blow and The Sisters prospects.
The Sisters prospect’s historical drill cores have confirmed cobalt is also present there, returning up to 1.8 metres at 820ppm cobalt from 124.7 metres and 1.5 metres at 320ppm from 138.4 metres.
New avenue of value creation
“Discovering the potential for platinoid mineralisation within the BHA Project is excellent news, as it provides another avenue to create shareholder value,” Castillo Copper CEO Dr Dennis Jensen said.
“Further, with global copper and cobalt prices near multi-year highs and $6.7 million cash on hand, CCZ has strong foundations to further capitalise on this favourable dynamic with mineral resource estimates already completed for the Big One Deposit and the Cangai Copper Mine, and one is currently underway at the BHA Project.”
Castillo is in the midst of modelling a JORC-compliant mineral resource estimate (MRE) focused on cobalt for the BHA, but has recently adjusted the design with a further 198 drill holes targeting a defined area, mostly polarised around the Reef Tank and Tors Tank prospects.
Information received from further work at The Sisters prospect will be modelled into a separate maiden resource estimate.
Next steps
In NSW:
- JORC 2012 compliant MRE for the BHA Project East Zone.
In Queensland:
- Assay results for Arya Prospect; and
- Big One Deposit – formalising timing for next drilling campaign.
In Zambia:
- Complete geophysical report on the Mkushi Project; and
- Complete work on the inaugural drilling campaign for the Luanshya Project.