Impact Minerals (ASX: IPT) has delivered high-grade precious and base metals assays from a six-hole Phase 1 diamond drill program at its Commonwealth gold-silver project in New South Wales.
Assays from the first two holes confirmed previous visual estimates of massive sulphide mineralisation remains open at depth and along plunge.
Best results were 8 metres at 3.3 grams per tonne gold, 186g/t silver, 5.6% zinc, 2.2% lead and 0.12% copper from 94.7m, including subsections of 3.8m at 6.5g/t gold, 385g/t silver, 11.5% zinc, 4.6% lead and 0.25% copper, as well as 0.5m at 9.7g/t gold, 90g/t silver, 11.5% zinc, 5% lead and 0.3% copper.
Another highlight intercept featured 4m at 0.8g/t gold, 45g/t silver, 9.2% zinc, 1.1% lead and 0.65% copper from 103m, including 1.72m at 1.5g/t gold, 54g/t silver, 9% zinc, 0.7% lead and 1% copper.
Kuniko Earn-In JV
Kuniko (ASX: KNI) funded the drilling under an earn-in and joint venture agreement with Impact, whereby Kuniko can earn up to 70% interest in the project.
The program followed a MobileMT airborne survey and soil and rock chip sampling that expanded the project’s exploration footprint, identifying a 4 kilometre-long conductive corridor extending beyond the current inferred resource at Commonwealth and Silica Hill.
That resource currently sits at 88,800 ounces of gold and 3.3 million ounces of silver plus zinc and lead credits.
The resource sits within 250m of surface with copper values that increase at depth, highlighting the potential for a deeper porphyry copper-gold source beneath the high-sulphidation, gold-rich volcanogenic massive sulphide (VMS) mineralisation.
Kuniko will now advance to a larger Phase 2 program, using the lates data to define priority targets for expansion and follow-up of the newly identified mineralised zones.
World-Class Similarities
Impact sees Commonwealth as an atypical gold-rich VMS system with strong similarities to the world-class Eskay Creek deposit in the famed Golden Triangle of British Columbia, Canada.
“With additional assay results from the remaining four holes—all of which show visible mineralisation—anticipated soon, […] we are optimistic that this will lead to a substantial increase in resources at Commonwealth,” Impact managing director Dr Mike Jones said.
Under the agreement between the two companies, Kuniko can earn a 51% stake by spending $1.5 million within two years, and increase that to 70% by spending an additional $1.5m within the two years after that.
Impact retains a 30% free-carried interest until the Decision to Mine, at which point it can either contribute or dilute down to 10% and then convert to a 2% Net Smelter Royalty.
