New World Resources reveals new copper targets along strike from Antler deposit
New World Resources is preparing to drill the high-priority targets in Arizona early next year.
New World Resources (ASX: NWC) has identified multiple new high-priority drill targets along strike from its wholly-owned Antler copper deposit in northern Arizona, United States.
The targets were defined after the explorer received “highly encouraging” results from a ground-based induced polarisation (IP) geophysical survey, which was designed to follow up on encouraging surface geochemistry anomalies recently delineated.
New World managing director and chief executive officer Mike Haynes said results have been “better and better” the deeper the company has drilled at Antler, with mineralisation remaining completely open at depth.
“This has led to our continued focus on drilling deeper at Antler to increase our resource base.”
Antler is a volcanogenic massive sulphide (VMS) deposit, which typically occurs in clusters. New World therefore believes there is considerable potential to discover additional VMS mineralisation along strike from the deposit.
“We also recognise that there is considerable potential to discover and develop satellite VMS deposits, along strike from Antler, that could allow us to expand plant throughput, which would have a positive impact on the economics of developing the project,” Mr Haynes added.
He said there are two known VMS deposits in the district and suggested there could be more.
New World has now commenced work to prepare for drilling of its recently defined Rattlesnake Ridge prospect, along with its latest high-priority targets in early 2023.
High-priority drilling targets
High-priority IP anomalies already identified by the company include the Rattlesnake Ridge, Copper Knob, West World and Antler Offset prospects.
No drilling has been undertaken at any of these targets to date and the anomalies have been modelled to be located between depths of 50-300m.
Drilling is scheduled to begin in “early” 2023.
Antler scoping study
In July, New World announced the results of a scoping study evaluating the potential development of the Antler deposit, based on its maiden JORC mineral resource estimate of 7.72 million tonnes at 3.9% copper equivalent.
The study presented a base case development scenario involving mining 9.3Mt at 1Mt per annum over an initial 10 years, to produce 271,240t of copper equivalent in concentrates.
Other project economics include a modest pre-production capital expenditure of US$201 million (A$302.5 million) and an expected revenue of US$2 billion (A$3 billion).