Aeon Metals reports high grade copper and cobalt, updated resource due soon
Drilling rig at Aeon Metals’ Walford Creek Project.
Aeon Metals (ASX: AML) has reported its highest copper and cobalt grades yet from the PY3 prospect, within its flagship wholly-owned Walford Creek Project in Queensland’s north west.
The results are from the final two holes from the second phase 2017 drill campaign which targeted west of the known Vardy resource.
Results from the two drill holes were 45m grading 2.21% copper, 0.32% cobalt and 43 grams per tonne silver, including a 30m interval grading 2.99% copper, 0.44% cobalt and 50g/t silver, and 13m grading 0.51% copper, 0.07% cobalt and 30g/t silver.
Aeon managing director Hamish Collins said the results included the company’s highest copper and cobalt grades its seen in the PY3 prospect.
“Although, we have had higher such grades in the PY1,” Mr Collins said.
“This confirms our belief that Walford Creek is a large mineral system with great potential for significant additional resources beyond those currently defined,” he added.
These last results complete the phase two drilling campaign and the company is working on a resource upgrade, which it plans to announce by late December or early January.
The current indicated and inferred resource for Walford sits at 73.3 million tonnes grading 0.40% copper, 0.85% lead, 0.85% zinc, 23.5 grams per tonne silver and 813 parts per million cobalt.
This equates to about 296,000t of contained copper, 60,000t of cobalt, 623,000t of zinc, 626,000t of lead and 55 million ounces of silver.
Once the resource has been updated, Aeon Metals will advance the project to feasibility status and look at various processing options including possible roasting for enhanced cobalt recoveries.
According to Aeon Metals, Walford Creek hosts on one of Australia’s “most advanced cobalt sulphide deposits”.
Aeon Metals estimates the cobalt resource within the project accounts for about A$4.4 billion in value.
In the company’s November investor presentation, it reported it was targeting the electric vehicle market for its cobalt and copper metals, while the zinc market had “strong” fundamentals due to a current supply deficit.
Aeon Metals’ shares were up more than 5% to A$0.30 in early morning trade.