Having locked away its iron ore resource in the Pilbara, Coziron Resources has now shifted gear to focus on the systematic exploration of its impressive W.A. gold and vanadium projects. The company intends to concentrate on its large Buddadoo vanadium project in the Midwest and it will also look to prove up the highly prospective Croyden Top-Camp gold project, an advanced exploration play in the western Pilbara.
Coziron Resources originally listed on the back of its Indonesian coal, iron ore and base metals assets in 2006 before riding the iron ore steam train all the way up the hill and then back down again when that market tanked in 2012.
Against this backdrop, the company cleverly picked up three major resource projects for only $15m in early 2012, which now constitute two of the company’s flagship projects in the western Pilbara and Midwest regions of W.A.
Sprinkle in some highly prospective and under-explored tenements for hard rock and alluvial/detrital gold deposits in the Pilbara and you get a company that looks capable of providing some excitement going forward.
The glue holding all this together for Coziron is the revered prospector and company-maker Mark Creasy, whose Creasy Group controls a 73% major shareholding in the company and retains a minority stake in all the project holdings it quietly ceded to Coziron in 2012.
First cab of the rank is the Yarraloola project, covering 988 square kilometres of highly prospective iron ore ground that is well-serviced with infrastructure and transportation options, near Pannawonica in the western Pilbara.
In 2014, the company identified the Robe Mesa and adjacent areas as targets for pisolitic iron ore mineralisation, the so-called “channel iron deposits” or CIDs that are somewhat prevalent throughout in the Pilbara.
Coziron went about drilling these deposits in 2014-15 and generated a global resource of 93.3 million tonnes grading just under 54% iron, at a time when no self-respecting exploration company was going near the unloved commodity.
The beauty of CIDs is that they are very low in contaminants and upgrade very easily to ~61% grade iron ore by simply driving off, or calcining the volatile components, principally water.
These materials blend well too with higher-grade, higher contaminant ores for direct shipping purposes and so it’s a case of not if, but when, the majors come knocking for Coziron’s CID resources.
As it stands, Coziron says the project would have a near 10-year mine life and the deposits are located just 10km from a bituminised highway.
Only a short distance away, the company has the Ashburton magnetite project, which is a new style of volcanic-hosted mineralisation that is a premium iron ore product, requiring less energy to smelt and creating less pollution given its simpler liberation and low sulphur content.
Metallurgical work has shown the deposits can be upgraded to +65% iron with low silica, phosphorus and alumina, which is a real gift in the iron ore game.
The deposits are 12km long, 1km wide and located only 40km from CITIC’s Sino Iron project or 70km from the Cape Preston Port.
Add to this, numerous drilling targets for the higher-grade Marra Mamba and Brockman style iron ores across the tenements and Coziron is starting to look interesting.
Whilst the company had a historical focus on iron ore, Coziron has now broadened its strategy to become a multi-commodity player.
Just up the road from the Yarraloola project towards Karratha, the company has drill ready targets for nickel and zinc, defined by highly anomalous soil sampling at the Shepherds Well project.
The same area also has prospectivity for “melon seed” detrital gold nugget occurrences, which are all the rage in the Pilbara at the moment.
Further east and only 40km south of a gold processing plant at Whim Creek, Coziron has hold of some seriously under-explored and prospective gold ground at its Croyden Top-Camp gold project, where it is earning a 70% interest from the Creasy Group.
The company has drill ready targets for shear-zone hosted gold deposits and good prospectivity for remnant gold throughout the project area.
Alluvial and eluvial gold production has occurred in the westernmost part of the tenement since 1886 and the region contains extensive evidence of prospector activity, according to Coziron.
RAB and aircore drilling took place in the 1970s and 1980s, however most holes did not penetrate any further than 30m depth from surface.
Gold is hosted in quartz veins and ounce per tonne intervals occur frequently throughout the tenement regions.
Significant coherent geochemical anomalies occur within the project, which the company describes as an advanced exploration play, with a plethora of high quality targets that require follow-up investigation.
Last, but by no means least, Coziron holds an 85% interest in the Buddadoo project tenement, which is located about 450km north of Perth and 180km east of Geraldton port, in the Midwest region of W.A.
The southern part of the tenement falls over the Buddadoo gabbro intrusion, which contains multiple bands of coarse vanadium-rich titanomagnetite mineralisation over widths of 350m and striking for 6.5km in a north-westerly direction.
An initial RC drilling program was completed during April and the highest-grade intercept returned was an impressive 22m grading 0.47% vanadium pentoxide from 52m down-hole.
In May, the company reported a dazzling 188m @ 0.34% vanadium pentoxide hit that also included a 9.4% titanium dioxide intersection from 12m to the end of the hole.
Vanadium is one of the emerging battery metals globally. Current prices for vanadium pentoxide are sitting just above A$40,000 per tonne.
According to Coziron, Buddadoo contains abundant vanadiferous titanomagnetite, which could be potentially concentrated into a direct shipping ore concentrate on-site and exported to China through the port at Geraldton.
A relatively low capex plant could be set up for simple crushing and magnetic separation to produce a vanadium-rich magnetite concentrate at Buddadoo.
There is also prospectivity for copper, nickel, zinc and gold on the Buddadoo tenement, which has not been examined in any detail to date.
With valuable iron ore resources in the bag and a suite of exciting precious metal and battery metals projects on the go, expect a flow of interesting and varied news stories from Coziron over coming months – and perhaps even a touch of excitement.
