Shares in Artemis Resources gained 8 per cent today on news of positive results from a pit optimisation of its Carlow Castle cobalt-copper-gold project near Karratha, Western Australia.
The optimisation was done to assess potential plant feed of Artemis’ Radio Hill Processing Plant- which lies 30km away by sealed roads – for its re-commissioning around June this year.
The project’s mineral resource estimate of 4.5 million tonnes at 0.9g/t gold, 0.07% cobalt, 0.4% copper was optimised at a cobalt price of A$104,046/t, copper price of A$8,831/t and a gold price of
A$1,650/oz.
The optimisation pits included 4.135 million tonnes with grade of 0.77g/t gold, 0.38% copper and 0.06% cobalt at a strip ration of 4.71:1.
The optimisation confirmed the deposit has significant scope for expansion with additional drilling.
Diamond drilling is currently underway at the project for final metallurgy and geotechnical studies.
“As part of Artemis’s review of all of its projects in the Karratha area, to prioritise potential plant feed for the Radio Hill Plant in readiness for its recommissioning scheduled for June this year, we have just completed the first optimisation of our Carlow Castle Cobalt/Copper/Gold Project with highly encouraging results,” Artemis’ Executive Chairman David Lenigas said.
“The results confirm that nearly all of the currently identified mineral resource estimates fall within the optimised pit shells.”
Mr Lenigas said the company had also recently completed a detailed Sub Audio Magnetics (SAM) survey over 1.9km2 covering the immediate Carlow Castle area.
We are now planning an extensive drilling programme based on these SAM findings to increase the size of this new and exciting cobalt/copper/gold discovery in the Pilbara,” he said.
The work will be used for geotechnical and metallurgical purposes, as well as resource category upgrades.
Today’s news comes after Artemis received positive results from pit optimisations of its Weerianna gold project’s mineral Resource.
Shares in Artemis were trading 1c higher at 20c in late morning trade.