Coda Minerals has been given the green light to begin drilling at its highly prospective Cameron River copper-gold project near Mt Isa with final environmental approvals received from the Queensland Government.
The company says the 30-hole RC drill campaign will kick off on August 23 and test a number of geochemical and induced polarisation survey targets.
According to management, the shallow 3000m program has been specifically designed to see first-pass results from initial sampling using portable X-ray fluorescence technology next month.
Initial drill targets include the Bluey, Bingo, Copper Weed, Rebound and Clifford prospects.
The drill program is based on a combination of mapping and geochemical results, mainly from gradient array-induced polarisation, dipole-dipole-induced polarisation and helicopter electromagnetic surveys.
Cameron River covers a 35 square kilometre gold and copper exploration area north of the Mary Kathleen uranium mine in the Mt Isa mineral province.
Coda entered into a binding farm-in and joint venture agreement last year with private entity Wilgus Investments to pick up the project.
Under the agreement Coda will spend $2 million on exploration over the next three years to earn an 80 per cent holding in the project after which time both companies will contribute funds on a pro-rata basis to advance the project.
Coda Minerals Chief Executive Officer, Chris Stevens said: “We are thrilled to have received final approvals to drill at Cameron River, clearing the way for our first drilling program to begin later this month. Over the past six months we have undertaken methodical exploration using a combination of targeted geophysics, geochemical sampling and lithostructural mapping.”
Last year rock chip sampling over several prospects at Cameron River returned high-grade results including 22.2 per cent copper and 2.74 g/t gold.
The Copper Weed and Rebound prospects have been the principal focus of historical exploration with further sampling by Coda turning up several high-grade results including 12.6 per cent copper and 2.27 g/t gold and 9.2 per cent copper, 2.74 g/t gold along with an impressive 156.7 g/t silver.
The company has also been busy at its flagship Elizabeth Creek copper project in South Australia, with the appointment of Fleet Space Technologies to begin a seismic survey at the site this month.
Coda says the survey is expected to help the company unlock the full potential of the project’s Emmie iron oxide-copper-gold discovery.
The Elizabeth Creek copper project is 100km south of BHP’s Olympic Dam mine, 15km from BHP’s Oak Dam West project and 50km west of OZ Minerals’ Carrapateena copper-gold project.
Coda recently extended its Emmie deposit more than 900m north after recent surface step-out drill hole encountered multiple zones of visible copper sulphide mineralisation.
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By Matt Birney
