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Astral Resources welcomes strategic ownership moves at Koongie Park

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By Colin Hay - 
Astral Resources AAR AuKing Mining AKN ASX Koongie Park
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Astral Resources (ASX: AAR) has welcomed a strategic ownership agreement under which its JV partner AuKing Mining (ASX: AKN) has moved to 100% ownership of the Koongie Park project in Western Australia.

Astral’s participating interest in the Koongie Park Joint Venture has now been converted to a 1% net smelter return royalty.

The company also retains the right to explore for and develop gold and other precious metals deposits within the Koongie Park project area, including platinum group elements (PGEs).

History of drilling success

The Koongie Park copper/zinc project is situated in the highly mineralised Halls Creek Mobile Belt which also hosts the Savannah (Sally Malay) and Copernicus nickel projects, the former Argyle diamond mine and the Nicolsons gold mining operation of Pantoro (ASX: PNR).

Koongie Park is located about 25km south west of the regional centre of Halls Creek on the Great Northern Highway in north-eastern Western Australia.

The project has already been the subject of significant exploration drilling and analysis since the 1970’s, often in line with movements in commodity prices.

Robust scoping study

In early June a Koongie Park scoping study was released which confirmed the potential for a financially robust, globally competitive operation.

The study showed the mine could source mineralisation from four open pit mines and an underground mine for an estimated total production of 110,000 tonnes of copper, 38,000 tonnes of zinc and 355,000 ounces of silver with an 11 year mine life.

AuKing’s chief executive officer, Paul Williams, said that the move to full ownership is an important step as the company looks to develop the Koongie Park assets over the next few years.

“We are very pleased to have reached this acquisition milestone, within two years of the joint venture’s commencement,” he said.

“Having completed more than 10,000m of additional drilling, expanded the existing JORC resources at Sandiego and Onedin, reported a maiden resource for Emull and then recently presenting the results of a scoping study, we believe that Koongie Park is now well established on a development path to coincide with the likely strong future demand for copper and zinc.”

Astral targeting Mandilla gold

Astral’s recent exploration attention has been focused on its 100%-owned Mandilla gold project near Kalgoorlie.

In early July the company reported it had intersected an exceptional 344 grams per metre of gold along the length of diamond drill hole MDRCD751 in drilling at the Theia deposit at Mandilla.

Significantly, the majority of that hit is located outside the current Theia mineral resource.

In December 2022, Astral announced an updated Mandilla gold project mineral resource estimate (MRE) of 30Mt at 1.1 grams per tonne gold for 1.03 million ounces of contained gold.

Astral has commenced work on an update to the Mandilla MRE which is expected to be announced in the September quarter.

At the same time the company is progressing a Mandilla scoping study and preparing for new RC drilling programs which are set to commence early in the September quarter.