PAT hits copper discovery 18km away from $10BN Sinomine
Our Investment Patriot Resources (ASX: PAT) just made a new copper discovery in Zambia.
We came into PAT primarily for its silver project in Peru.
(where PAT has 559-774Moz silver equivalent exploration target and currently has a 31.4Moz silver equivalent JORC resource)
BUT… we will take an unexpected copper discovery too…
Especially with copper prices trading near all time highs:
(source)
PAT declared a “high grade” copper discovery from its project in Zambia hitting 17m at 0.41% copper, 4.7g/t silver and 0.30% zinc from 29m.
(With copper grades peaking around ~2.56%)
(source)
With the current drill program PAT’s now opened up an area that sits inside a ~1km x 0.8km geophysical.
(source)
The biggest kicker for us is how PAT’s discovery sits ~18km from $10BN Sinomine's US$600M Kitumba copper project.
Where PAT has a processing plant and copper smelter being commissioned this year.
(source)
A discovery next door to processing infrastructure is the holy grail for a small cap company.
AND PAT confirmed in today’s announcement that Sinomine had previously offered access to its infrastructure IF PAT were to find anything:
So today’s results could be the first sniff to a bigger copper project with a realistic pathway to development.
Again, we are in PAT for the silver project - so we will take unexpected win like this on a copper asset like this.
Check out our last piece of coverage on PAT’s copper asset in a previous Quick Take: PAT - $11BN Sinomine raises US$764M to fund Zambian copper expansion ~4km away from PAT
There's no guarantee anything happens between PAT and Sinomine, but PAT chairman Hugh Warner dealt directly with Sinomine during his time at Prospect Resources.
And perhaps on a more informal level recently here (taken from the March presentation), but there has been plenty of time passed since then to have had further discussions:
(source)
What’s next for PAT?
Peruvian Silver - Tassa Silver-Gold Project
Here is a nice summary of everything we know about PAT’s silver project from a prior announcement:
(source)
Next we want to see PAT run its first infill/expansion drill program.
Here are the milestones we are tracking for that program:
- 🔲 Drill permits approved
- 🔲 Phase 1 drill program (mostly infill drilling)
- 🔲 Assay results from phase 1 drilling
- 🔲 Updated JORC resource.
Zambian Copper - Tonic Discovery
With continued copper tailwinds and now confirmation that there are talks with $10BN neighbour Sinomines about potential use of infrastructure including processing, we are interested to see what might happen from here over the next 12 months.
