Helix Resources Ltd (ASX:HLX) has defined what it believes are the 50 best targets as it prepares for a 15,000 to 25,000 metre drill campaign in its Western Group Tenements (WGTs) in the Cobar-Nyngan area of central NSW.
A new report on recent work on its WGTs located approximately 30km southeast of Cobar provides a number of key outcomes including:
- Improved geological understanding is significantly increasing copper targets emerging as the results from large scale geochemical sampling programs are received and interpreted with new mapping and geophysical data. The underlying geological framework being compiled provides a fresh and unique insight on structures and rock-types associated with mineralisation and is enhancing the targeting and prioritising criteria.
- The detail and granularity of secondary, east-trending structures has been enhanced and the Company is following up on areas where these intersect north-trending structures – with the intersection zones interpreted to be associated with major regional deposits such as the CSA Mine (owned by Metals Acquisition Corp.).
- Based on new geochemical data and particularly where associated with the intersection of north and east trending structures – fifteen new targets have been added to the company’s ‘Top 20’ in the WGTs’ out of 51 anomalies and targets currently being assessed.
- These numbers and new insights on copper discovery opportunities warrants a major ongoing drill campaign of between 15,000 to 25,000m to quickly assess, ‘kill’ or advance the higher, Top 20 targets in the WGT.
- Refining of the targets is in progress and planning for the drill campaign has commenced.
We are now seeing a surge of data and ‘target-insights’ coming through and it’s becoming pretty clear that we need to focus on a major drilling program next year – likely to start late in the March quarter,” Helix’s Chair, Mike Rosenstreich, said.
“The rationale behind focusing on the Cobar region and copper (and gold) in early 2021 was that we would do smart, systematic exploration with our team building up local expertise. We are now gaining real momentum on this strategy and that means we must increase the tempo of our drilling to test what is now a long list of new copper targets.
“At our Annual General Meeting recently, I tortured a ‘baseball metaphor’ but I think it is apt – we are ‘loading the bases’, we have a long line up of targets emerging to ‘swing at with the drill (bat)’, sometimes we get ’struck out’ – but our team is confident of ‘scoring runs’ to increase our copper resource inventory.
“Our confidence, that is, confidence across the Helix team comes from the quality of the underlying technical data, which is contributing a new, detailed view of the key geological elements which control mineralisation in this region which we think will improve our ‘batting average’ as we test these targets.
“With these results now streaming in, and our improved ability to discern secondary, intersecting structures thought to control mineralisation – there is a ‘loud buzz’ around the Company. We are gearing up for a major drill campaign to test a large number of targets clearly emerging on the Western Group Tenements and potentially, similarly for the Eastern tenements also.
“There is a lot to watch out for and I look forward to sharing further results and updates. “
