AuKing Mining to commence first drilling program at Koongie Park copper-zinc project
AuKing Mining is seeking to raise at least $6 million to fund earn-in and exploration commitments at Koongie Park.
Re-listed explorer AuKing Mining (ASX: AKN) is preparing to kick-off its first drilling program at the Koongie Park copper-zinc project in north-eastern WA at the end of this month.
The company plans to undertake a minimum 7,000m of combined reverse circulation and diamond drilling to test the project’s mineralisation at depths of between 130m and 900m.
It has delineated 30 target holes at the highly-prospective Sandiego and Onedin deposits to improve geological interpretation and resource confidence.
Fresh samples will also be collected from near-surface ores at Onedin for the purposes of metallurgical work.
Drilling is expected to take approximately three months to complete and assay results will provide a steady flow of information to feed into an updated resource estimate for Koongie Park later this year.
Earn-in agreement
Koongie Park has been wholly-owned by Anglo Australian Resources (ASX: AAR) since 2003.
It has been subject to significant exploration drilling and analysis since the 1970s, primarily focused on Sandiego and Onedin.
In February, AuKing entered into an agreement with Anglo to earn up to 75% interest in the project by spending $3 million on base metals exploration over a three-year period.
That period commenced following AuKing’s re-listing with the ASX in June.
Historic drilling
Previous exploration drilling at Koongie Park comprised 242 reverse circulation and diamond holes for more than 50,000m and produced “excellent potentially-economic intersections”.
Historic highlights from Onedin include 40.1m at 1.31% copper and 4.89% zinc; 22m at 1.1% copper, 21% zinc and 0.6 grams per tonne gold; and 30m at 1.1% copper and 11.7% zinc.
Sandiego results include 77m at 1.65% copper, 9.7% zinc and 0.54g/t gold; and 68m at 6.8% copper, 9.6% zinc and 0.34g/t gold.
Highly-mineralised location
Located in WA’s highly-mineralised Halls Creek region, Koongie Park comprises 10 licences (two mining and eight exploration) covering an area of over 500 square kilometres.
The project has an existing JORC 2012 resource of 6.36 million tonnes at 1.3% copper, 4.1% zinc, 0.3g/t gold and 26g/t silver, but is believed to be significantly under-explored at depth and along strike.
AuKing has identified multiple drill targets to expand on existing known resources at Sandiego and Onedin.
The company is also focused on exploring for further VMS (volcanogenic massive sulphide) base metal mineralisation discoveries below 150m depth.