Gold and copper explorer Tennant Minerals (ASX:TMS) is gearing up for a fresh phase of drilling at its Bluebird discovery in the Northern Territory to test new ‘priority’ targets.
The $22.78 million market capitalisation company says the targets of this new phase of Stage 3 drilling come from the modelling of IP resistivity data combined with 3D gravity inversions. Tennant says this data highlights the potential to triple the footprint of the copper-gold-mineralised zone in the area.
The Bluebird copper-gold discovery forms part of Tennant’s wider Barkly Project near the town of Tennant Creek.
The two key targets to be tested through this drilling work include Bluebird East and Bluebird West.
At Bluebird East, previous shallow rotary air blast (RAB) drilling geochemistry correlates with the eastern part of an induced polarisation (IP) resistivity low/gravity high. According to Tennant, this represents a ‘highly prospective’ drilling target just 500m east of the Bluebird discovery.
Meanwhile, at Bluebird West, Tennant will test a coincident IP resistivity low/gravity high target that has not been subject to any previous shallow drilling. This also represents a potential repeat of the Bluebird discovery.
This new drilling work is set to begin in 2 weeks and will build on further ‘thick’ and ‘shallow’ results from Tennant’s latest Stage 3 drilling work in the Barkly project area.
The latest results from Bluebird include hole BBDD0038 with 12.5m @ 2% copper equivalent (CuEq), or 0.98% copper, 1.02g/t gold, and 0.01% bismuth, from 119.1m downhole, including 6.8m @ 3.1% CuEq from 123m including 2.4m @ 4.9% CuEq from 124.6m; and hole BBDD0032 with 14.4m @ 1.4% CuEq (1.01% copper, 0.41g/t gold, and 0.02% bismuth) from 73m, including 6.4m @ 2% CuEq from 73m including 1.4m @ 4.2% CuEq from 78m.
Tennant says these results confirm the continuity of the ‘high-grade’ copper-gold mineralisation in the area over a 500m strike length, with the mineralised zone still open in all directions.
Tennant Minerals holds two core copper-gold projects in the Northern Territory: Barkly and Babbler. The company says the projects are considered ‘highly prospective’ for high-grade copper-gold deposits similar to major deposits such as the Peko deposit, which lies just 20km west of Barkly.
Tennant had around $4.37 million cash and cash equivalents at hand as of June 30, according to its latest quarterly report.
Write to Joshua Smith at Mining.com.au
Images: Tennant Minerals
