MINOTAUR TARGETS GROUND CLOSE TO TWO SA-QLD COPPER-GOLD MINES IN INTENSE NEW DISCOVERY PUSH
Ground close to two operating Australian copper-gold mines – Prominent Hill in SA and Eloise near
Cloncurry in northwest Queensland – is the subject of an intense end-of-year drill push to find new
commercial base metals ore bodies.
The work program will be led by Adelaide-based Minotaur Exploration (ASX: MEP) – the company
that made the original 2001 Prominent Hill discovery that led to today’s major mine operation.
Critically, targets within the dual campaigns are no more than 22 kilometres from a mine face and as
close as ~7 kilometres, yet have never been drilled previously.
Minotaur is fully funded by Prominent Hill miner, OZ Minerals, in both the SA and Queensland
projects.
Under the new campaigns announced by Minotaur today, a 2,270m diamond drill program to
test four shallow geophysical targets along strike of and to the south of the Eloise mine, 55kms
south-east of Cloncurry, has commenced.
Minotaur’s tenements have attracted investment to date by OZ Minerals ofA$3.2m under joint
venture, targeting the iron sulphide (ISCG) style of mineralisation familiar at the Eloise mine.
Minotaur Managing Director, Mr Andrew Woskett, said today the targets are within 5km
of Eloise and the Altia lead, silver, zinc deposit and only 10km from the Maronan lead, silver and
copper deposit.
In SA, Minotaur says it and OZ Minerals have finalised a drill plan, scheduled to start late this
month on four targets immediately north of the Prominent Hill mine, prioritised
after an extensive ground electromagnetic survey in the area last month. The focus is a
significant regional structure known as the Skylark Shear Zone.
This work is part of a Minotaur-OZ Minerals collaboration arrangement whereby each contributes
up to $1.5 million to proof test agreed targets for base metal mineralisation within OZ Minerals’ Mt
Woods exploration tenements in the Prominent Hill area.
Some initial drill testing of anomalies was conducted in 2016, with the search criteria honed this year
to focus in on the Skylark Shear Zone.
Mr Woskett said the two pronged exploration campaign meant a period of intense operational
activity through to end of calendar year for the Company which also has other base metals
exploration work underway near Cloncurry with Japan’s JOGMEC, and on several nickel projects in
WA.
The SA-Queensland campaigns come as Minotaur has boosted its cash-in-bank with a $1 million
private placement as well as a current Share Purchase Plan (SPP) to raise a further $1 million –
proceeds of which will partly fund the new work.
Minotaur’s largest shareholder, Canada’s Sprott Group of companies, and the second
largest Shareholder, Yarraandoo Pty Ltd, have committed to subscribe for up to A$425,000 of
any unsubscribed SPP amount within the A$1.0 million SPP target. The SPP closes on October 20.
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