Great Western Exploration Limited (ASX: GTE) is pleased to advise that it has secured funding from the WA Government for the upcoming diamond drilling programme at its giant Oval and Oval South Copper-Gold targets in WA.
The funding will be provided under the Government’s Exploration Incentive Scheme (EIS).
The giant Oval and Oval South Copper-Gold targets are within the Company’s Yerrida North Project, located on the northern and western portions of the Yerrida Basin, approximately 800km north-east of Perth and adjacent to the DeGrussa and Monty Cu-Au Volcanic Hosted Massive Sulphide deposits (VHMS).
Great Western will receive funding for up to 50 per cent of the drilling costs (capped at $113,000) and up to $5,000 towards drill rig mobilisation costs.
The Company believes the EIS co-funding is a strong endorsement of the prospectivity of Oval and Oval South and appreciates the support from the Western Australian Government for the Company's exploration programme.
Rio Tinto & Sandfire’s Work
The Oval and Oval South Targets were originally defined by Rio Tinto Tempest airborne EM survey in the late 1990s. Rio Tinto drill-tested the Oval target, drilling a hole to a depth of 232m and terminating the hole within black shale with disseminated pyrite, considered at the time to be the source of the conductor.
In 2010 a VTEM survey was completed by Great Western over an area that encompassed both Oval and Oval South. This geophysical method can penetrate deeper into highly conductive terrains such as shales at this location than the Tempest technique utilised by Rio Tinto.
The VTEM data defined the conductor at a depth of 300m, below the shale surface where OVR001 was terminated; hole OVR001 did not intersect the conductor.
Further definition of the Oval and Oval South targets was completed by a joint venture between Great Western and Sandfire (ASX: SFR), where Sandfire spent $4.5M on exploration on the project from 2017 before withdrawing.
Great Western assumed 100% ownership of the Yerrida North Project, with all associated exploration data compiled and completed by Sandfire during the joint venture.
Sandfire completed an Airborne Gravity Gradiometry (AGG) in 2022, with the AGG survey defining discrete gravity highs at Oval and Oval South, that overlayed near perfectly with the VTEM anomalies. The coincident gravity and EM anomalies were interpreted as potential buried bodies of metal rich sulphide mineralisation.
Further Interpretation Defines “Growth Fault”
Further interpretation of geophysical data (gravity and magnetics) by Great Western defined a north-east trending feature. The company’s independent interpretation was found to align perfectly with Geological Survey Western Australia’s (GSWA) major basin defining “growth fault” of the Yerrida Basin interpretation completed in 2000, undertaken without the extensive geophysical dataset Great Western now has.
