Helix Resources uncovers high grade cobalt at Collerina
Drilling at Helix Resources’ Collerina project.
Helix Resources (ASX: HLX) has found cobalt grading up 1.2% during its first-pass cobalt sampling program at its Collerina copper-zinc project in central New South Wales.
Exploration at Collerina started in mid-2014 and focussed on copper and zinc anomalies. However, Helix carried out a geochemical sampling program last month along the project’s Collerina trend, with six out of 11 samples returning cobalt grades higher than 0.2%.
The company also reviewed historical drilling results and identified intersections of 40m grading 0.06% cobalt and 1% nickel, including a 6m interval with 0.13% cobalt and 1% nickel from surface.
Another historical drill intersection revealed 7m grading 0.15% cobalt and 0.7% nickel, with a 1m interval containing 0.46% cobalt and 1.1% nickel.
“Building upon the promising outcomes from the recent regional review of historic drilling and geophysics, the initial cobalt results are highly significant,” Helix managing director Mick Wilson stated.
“We have returned rock chip samples over 1% cobalt, with six of the 11 samples exceeding 0.2% cobalt,” he said, adding the samples had only been taken from a small portion of the prospective area.
Helix plans to begin cobalt-focussed exploration over about 15km of strike within Collerina, which is situated near to Collerina Cobalt’s (ASX: CLL) cobalt-nickel prospects.
According to Helix, its cobalt prospects are also along the same regional trends as notable cobalt explorers in the area including CleanTeQ’s (ASX: CLQ) Sunrise, Australian Mines’ (ASX: AUZ) Flemington projects.
Helix is currently exploring Collerina project for copper with follow-up phase two reverse circulation and diamond drilling underway.
Initial assays reported in November, revealed 10m at 1.4% copper, 1.1% zinc and 0.15 grams per tonne gold, and 1m grading 2.3% copper and 0.2g/t gold.
Mr Wilson said cobalt drilling will be conducted in parallel with its copper and gold exploration programs.
Shares in the stock were higher than 11% at A$0.05 in early afternoon trade.