C’moly eyes good news on copper resource upgrade

COPPERMOLY, whose shares have fallen almost 50% to A$0.052 in the last six months, is expecting positive news in the next few months on the anticipated upgrading of its 200 million tonne inferred Simuku copper resource as well as a maiden inferred resource at Nakru-1.
Following the A$20 million expenditure commitment by joint venture partner Barrick Gold, Coppermoly has a retained 28% interest in its West New Britain tenements at Nakru, Simuku and Talelumas, which are a four-hour drive from Kimbe.
The upgrading of the Simuku resource by industry consultants Golder Associates follows the drilling of 37 holes by Barrick with six holes totalling 4,227 metres completed since the calculation of the maiden inferred resource.
Industry sources said the upgrading at Simuku could provide resources in the indicated and proven categories with Barrick having to subsequently decide whether it needed to consider additional drilling prior to carrying out a prefeasibility study.
Golder Associates will review all drill-hole data to provide a resource estimate by June this year and Barrick anticipates further drilling to determine the extent of copper and gold mineralisation.
Barrick said an overlying ‘blanket’ of secondary copper enrichment at Nakru had been intersected in four holes with a 13.55m intersection at an exceptionally high grade of 2.8% copper and 0.23 g/t of gold from 74.45 metres depth.
In addition, just below this secondary blanket and a barren dyke, there was a further 22.23 metre intersection that yielded a still impressive 1.3% copper and 2.38 g/t gold, including one metre of 4.6% copper, 42 g/t gold and 2,840ppm tellurium.