Australian copper company Castillo Copper (ASX:CCZ) has appointed the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO) to undertake metallurgical testwork on samples from various prospects within its Broken Hill Project.
The company reports 6 samples collected from the project’s East Zone, including the Fence Gossan, Reefs, and Tors Tank prospects will undergo metallurgical testing.
The purpose of the testing is to scope the potential to extract rare earth elements (REE) mineralisation from shallow clay zones, characterise the REE leachability from the fresh pegmatite and highly weathered clay samples, and separating out ‘high value’ magnetic rare earth oxides (MREO).
Castillo reports the grades in the sample range from 362 to 603 parts per million (ppm).
Castillo’s board believes this is a ‘crucially’ important step towards materially advancing the viability of the Broken Hill Project’s East Zone. The company also says robust metallurgical testwork results for ‘high value’ MREO mineralisation will aid in securing interest from prospective development partners.
Commenting on the testwork, Castillo Copper Chairman, Ged Hall says: “The board is delighted ANSTO is conducting specialist metallurgical testwork on samples from the BHA Project’s East Zone.
Understanding the potential to extract REE mineralisation, especially MREOs will greatly assist in our efforts to align with a future development partner. Pleasingly, the work done to date clearly confirms there is an extensive shallow REE system across the central part of the BHA Project’s East Zone.”
“Pleasingly, the work done to date clearly confirms there is an extensive shallow REE system across the central part of the BHA Project’s East Zone”
Castillo also reports diamond drillhole TT_005DD completed at Tors Tank returned 13m @ 1,550ppm total rare earth oxides (TREO) from 5m with 38.9% MREO.
The company notes the ‘high value’ MREO reading was well above the 25% average among the peer group. Re-assays of 1m samples from Tors Tank and Fence Gossan reaffirmed ‘high’ MREO percentages and provided ‘clearer’ evidence there is an ‘extensive’, and shallow REE mineralisation system across the centre of the Broken Hill Project’s East Zone.
Additionally, hand auger sampling assays delineated a sizeable anomalous REE zone around the Fence Gossan prospect.
Castillo Copper is an Australia-based explorer primarily focused on copper exploration across Australia and Zambia. The company’s portfolio of assets includes the NWQ Project in northwest Queensland, and the Broken Hill and Cangai projects in New South Wales.
The company also holds the Mkushi, Luanshya, North and South Lumwana, and Mwansa projects, which collectively cover about 1,100km-square of Zambia’s copper belt.
Images: Castillo Copper Ltd
