Comet planning initial copper drilling campaign

Comet Resources Ltd (ASX:CRL) announced today that its Consulting Geologist, Mr Mart Rampe has completed a visit to the Barraba Copper Project site.

Rampe visited the New England, NSW site to assess environmental and logistical conditions to enable the finalisation of planning for a comprehensive initial drilling program.

Rampe has 46 years’ experience in minerals exploration and development which includes grassroots exploration through to pre-mine development, and has as held senior exploration management positions in publicly listed and private exploration companies, and also worked with a number of commodities including gold, base metals, uranium, coal and industrial minerals.

The assessment included a review of site topography, as well as access conditions to bring in drilling equipment and support infrastructure.

Further assessment of the historical mining and processing Gulf Creek Mine was made in relation to current and historical exploration and mining data.

“Based on our recent site work, we propose to focus initial physical exploration at Barraba on the Gulf Creek deposit area, where we see clear prospectivity,” Comet Managing Director, Matthew O’Kane said.

“We’re now finalising a drilling plan aimed at confirming the presence and extent of mineralisation there not just for high-grade copper but also for other base and precious metals.”

It should be noted the Barraba Copper Project is an early stage copper play that has never been investigated using modern exploration techniques.

Once validation of existing exploration data is finalised, Comet will focus on the initial exploration program, including drill-testing of areas below and along strike of the historically mined lodes at the Gulf Creek Copper Mine.

Along with drill testing, Comet will also conduct downhole geophysical surveys, which it hopes will provide additional information about potential parallel and blind lodes.

Anomalous areas previously delineated by induced polarisation surveys are considered to be priority exploration targets.

These Targets will be followed up during the course of the same exploration program.

Volcanogenic massive sulphide (VMS) deposits often occur in clusters, it is this fact that has the company excited about the potential for new discoveries in and around the Gulf Creek Mine.

Copper play, just one bullet in Comet’s arsenal

Today’s news comes shortly after the company gave an update on its due diligence relating to the binding heads of agreement (HOA) with privately owned El Alamo Resources Limited (EARL) for the proposed acquisition of the Santa Teresa Gold Project.

The high-grade Santa Teresa Gold Project is comprised of two mineral claims totalling 202 hectares located in the gold-rich El Alamo district, immediately to the south of the town of El Alamo, approximately 100 kilometres south-east of Ensenada, Baja California, Mexico.

It is prospective for high-grade gold, with an existing Inferred Resource of 64,000 ounces gold at an average grade of 8.7g/t, reported at a cut-off grade of 4 g/t (foreign resource estimate).

Furrhermore, Comet recently has received promising metallurgical test work completed on material from the diamond drilling program at its 100% owned Springdale Graphite Project in Western Australia.

This included a total carbon grade of 96.9% in final optimised flotation results.

These results open up opportunities for potential applications in high price graphite markets and also pave the way for further test work on graphene.

There is expected to be plenty of news to come from all three projects as the year progresses.