Confirmation of shallow Cu/Zn mineralised system at flagship, WA

This morning, our exploration investment AuKing Mining (ASX:AKN) delivered the latest drilling results at its Koongie Park copper-zinc project in the Halls Creek region of WA.

Koongie Park already has a JORC resource estimate of 8.9Mt at 1.01% copper, 3.67% zinc, 0.77% lead, 0.16g/t gold, and 26g/t silver, all from its two most advanced prospects, namely Onedin and Sandiego.

With today’s news AKN is looking to add a third prospect to the mix and potentially increase its overall JORC resource.

Today’s assay results came from the Emull prospect, which was originally a Northern Star Resources listing asset back in 2003.

Northern Star drilled some 88 holes here, identifying an open-pittable resource of ~4.5mt @ 0.33% copper (non-JORC), but let go of the project after acquiring the Paulsens gold project.

AKN returned the following assays from eight, reverse circulation (RC) holes:

• 74m @ 0.36% Cu, 0.71% Zn and 6g/t Ag from 106m
• 89m @ 0.36% Cu, 1.18% Zn and 9g/t Ag from 61m
• 25m @ 0.46% Cu, 1.55% Zn and 8g/t Ag from 34m and
• 86m @ 0.33% Cu, 0.09% Zn and 2g/t Ag from 53m

What is most promising is that the intercepts were mostly made from shallow depths of ~100m, all of the intercepts to date also indicate that the prospect could be open at depth and along strike.

The mineralisation was found mostly in the primary zone as sulphides - similar to that at Sandiego - and hence amenable to conventional extraction methods.

Provided the mineralisation is continuous and of economic grade, which further drilling will determine, then Emull could provide a quicker path to early production, as a shallow, bulk-tonnage, open-pittable deposit.

Significant magnetic features also exist to the north-west along strike and to the south-west of the main mineralised zone, untested by drilling, and providing plenty of options for future drill targets.

Further drilling is now planned at Emull before the end of 2022.

In the meantime, we expect that AKN will look to incorporate Emull within its current MRE. This is primarily a database exercise (as they already have plenty of historic drilling data).

We wouldn’t be surprised by an updated MRE later this quarter, or else the following quarter.