Koba Resources about to begin first drilling in 25 years at Idaho cobalt project
Strong IP geophysical anomalies have been identified over 4km of strike at the Blackpine cobalt-copper project.
Cobalt hunter Koba Resources (ASX: KOB) has delineated multiple high-priority targets across its entire Idaho flagship project, Blackpine, and in the coming days will begin the first drilling program there in 25 years.
The company says strong induced polarisation (IP) geophysical anomalies have been identified over 4km of strike.
Blackpine lies 15km south the historical Blackbird cobalt-copper mine which produced 5 million tonnes at 0.6% cobalt and 1.5% copper up until 1968. Both projects are located on the famed Idaho Cobalt Belt.
A number of the high priority targets have been identified where IP polarisation corresponds with strong cobalt-copper soil geochemical anomalies.
Drill program will extend known cobalt mineralisation
Koba managing director and chief executive officer Ben Vallerine said the IP survey was undertaken to locate extensions of high-grade mineralisation at the historic Blackpine mine, as well as looking for additional sulphide-rich mineralisation in other parts of the project area.
“The delineation of numerous, undrilled IP anomalies that coincide with strong cobalt-copper soil anomalism increases our confidence in Blackpine,” he added.
The results also “further demonstrate the untapped potential of the project”.
During September, Koba will begin testing shallow anomalies at the Swift prospect.
Applications for drill permits to test other delineated targets have been submitted.
Previous explorers focused on copper, not cobalt
The upcoming drill program will be the first in more than 25 years at Blackpine but will be different in one important respect: the previous explorers were primarily targeting copper, paying little attention to the cobalt.
Koba holds several projects in the Idaho Cobalt Belt (as well as one in Nevada, 50km from Las Vegas).
The belt was mined from the mid-1800s with the last cobalt production in 1969.
Apart from Blackpine, Koba other projects on the belt comprise Colson, Panther and Elkhorn.
Drilling is now under way at Colson and, on completion, the rig will move to Blackpine, 40km to the southeast.
All of the projects have historical exploration records showing high-grade hits, from either surface sampling or drilling. A few have seen some mining with high-grade output in the past.
In the same region is the Idaho cobalt project owned by Jervois Global (ASX: JRV) which has a resource of 6.8Mt at 0.42% cobalt, 0.64% copper and 0.15 grams per tonne gold.