Encounter Resources (ASX:ENR) has begun a co-funded diamond drilling program at its Sandover Copper Project in the Northern Territory.
The $156.87 million market capitalisation company plans to test the southwestern margin of the Georgina Basin, which is home to Sandover, with one to 2 targeted stratigraphic diamond holes.
This drilling program is co-funded by a grant of up to $200,000 from the Northern Territory Government, and Encounter plans to complete both holes this month.
This news comes after the company identified outcropping red-bed sandstone sequences with multiple narrow but strike-extensive grey shale units containing copper oxide mineralisation in the area.
Encounter reports that the shale units containing the outcropping copper mineralisation at Sandover are considered to be only moderate yet have precipitated ‘considerable’ copper.
This provides Encounter with ‘encouraging’ evidence that processes capable of forming ‘high-grade’ copper mineralisation are present in the basin.
Encounter Resources Managing Director Will Robinson says drilling has been designed to test for a reductant unit at a key structural location.
“The shale units containing the outcropping copper identified at Sandover are only considered to be moderate reductants but have precipitated considerable copper, which provides evidence that a highly copper-charged fluid has been active in the basin.”
“The shale units containing the outcropping copper … [provide] evidence that a highly copper-charged fluid has been active in the basin”
Encounter Resources is an ASX-listed copper-focused mineral explorer with assets across Australia.
As of 30 September 2023, the company had $9.4 million cash at hand, according to its latest quarterly report.
Write to Aaliyah Rogan at Mining.com.au
Images: Encounter Resources
