mox vms and axt

MOX VMS and AXT are the candodates to likely benefit

Teck Cominco discovery expected to spark mini-boom
Email Print Normal font Large font Barry FitzGerald
April 25, 2007

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AdvertisementSTAND by for a mini-boom involving copper/gold explorers in South Australia's Gawler Craton as mining punters scramble for exposure to ground positions near the Carrapateena copper/gold discovery of Canada's Teck Cominco and prospector Rudy Gomez.

Mr Gomez discovered Carrapateena in 2005 in a drilling program the SA Government partly funded. But it struggled to match the excitement that surrounded its original discovery hole (67 metres at an average grade of 3.03 per cent copper and 0.4 grams of gold a tonne) in follow-up work Teck Cominco funded.

But the Canadian persistence has paid off. In its March quarter report to the Canadian market, Teck Cominco has reported that hole 50 returned a 905-metre intersection grading 2.1 per cent copper and one gram of gold a tonne, including 95 metres grading 3.3 per cent copper and 0.6 g/tonne gold.

Teck Cominco did not provide any more information on the hole, although there is industry gossip that the group believes it finally understands what controls the mineralisation at the property.

The intersection is believed to have been returned from depths below 550 metres. It is also believed to have been from a vertical rather than an inclined hole, raising the prospect it was drilled down a pipe-like structure, overstating its importance.

But Teck Cominco said several holes 100 metres to the north, east and south-east had returned "visual" copper mineralisation. Assay results have not yet been received.

Carrapateena sits hard up against Lake Torrens and to the south-east of BHP Billiton's Olympic Dam operation and Oxiana's Prominent Hill copper/gold development. More than a dozen explorers have continued to crawl over the region.

The 1975 discovery hole at Olympic Dam was 170 metres grading 2.12 per cent copper. But it also came with revenue-boosting uranium at 0.58 kilograms a tonne.