Middle Island Resources has officially increased its tenure in the Northern Territory and expanded its Barkly site after completing the acquisition of the East Tennant project from Strategic Energy Resources.
The purchase covers six exploration licenses, taking its total landholding in the East Tenant region to an impressive 6753 square kilometres, with exploration programs set to be planned to identify new priority targets.
To clinch the deal, Middle Island has issued 18.24 million of its fully-paid ordinary shares at the deemed price of 3.5 cents each to Strategic Energy. The company says its newly-acquired land position covers 1319sq km and is considered highly-prospective for the discovery of copper-gold and lead-zinc-silver.
Middle Island Resources chief executive officer Roland Bartsch said: “This transaction is aligned with MDI’s corporate strategy: to build value through exploration and consolidation of high-quality underexplored Greenfields projects with potential to deliver ‘world class’ discoveries, adding value through efficiencies and growth of scientific understanding by focusing on a highly prospective region.”
Geoscience Australia says the historic Tennant Creek mining district is best known for its ancient and high-grade gold deposits, having produced 5.5 million ounces of gold, 488,000 tonnes of copper and 5000 tonnes of bismuth at an average grade of 19.3 grams per tonne gold and 2.9 per cent copper.
The company is targeting iron-oxide-copper-gold (IOCG) alteration at its Barkly project. IOCG deposits are highly sought-after mineral systems due to their potentially high metal content.
Australia has two major IOCG provinces of global significance – namely the Olympic IOCG province along the eastern margin of the Gawler Craton in South Australia and the Cloncurry district in the eastern Mount Isa Inlier of north-west Queensland.
Middle Island plunged four diamond drillholes into its Crosswinds prospect at the project last year, searching for the source of outcropping copper oxide mineralisation that yielded portable XRF readings of between 24.8 per cent and an astounding 76.2 per cent copper.
Crosswinds sits just 5km south of Emmerson Resources’ high-grade Hermitage discovery that returned a stunning 116m hit going 3.38 per cent copper and 0.88 grams per tonne gold in 2021. More recently, Emmerson delivered an additional 94.4m grading 2.74 per cent copper, 5.58g/t gold, 17.88g/t silver and 0.44 per cent bismuth from 85m.
In April, Middle Island named Roland Bartsch, a geologist with 35 years’ experience, as its new chief executive officer due to his background of developing and managing similar projects.
Mr Bartsch was previously the vice president and Australian manager for Copper Mountain Mining, where he managed the full spectrum of exploration and pre-development issues of its Mt Isa Inlier copper-gold projects in Queensland, including its Eva copper project based around a cluster of IOCG deposits.
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By Michael Philipps
