Image credit: Coda Minerals Limited.
Coda Minerals Limited and Torrens Mining Limited have commenced a joint venture for the Elizabeth Creek Copper Project in South Australia’s world-class mining jurisdiction, the Gawler Craton.
The Elizabeth Creek Copper Project, which covers 739 square kilometres, is located 100 kilometres south of BHP’s Olympic Dam mine, 15 kilometres from BHP’s Oak Dam West Project and 50 kilometres west of OZ Minerals’ Carrapateena copper-gold project.
The project includes JORC 2012- compliant Indicated Mineral Resources at the Windabout and MG14 deposits, which together host a combined 159,000 tonnes of contained copper and 9,500 tonnes of contained cobalt.
The project also includes Coda’s Emmie Bluff prospect, which has a JORC compliant Zambian-style copper-cobalt Exploration Target, and strong iron oxide copper-gold (IOCG) ore potential.
This morning Coda advised that it had met the Free-Carry Expenditure Limit under its Farm-in and Joint Venture Agreement with Terrace Mining, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Torrens Mining, at Elizabeth Creek, after expending $8.62 million on exploration to date.
Accordingly, Coda and Torrens have now formed an unincorporated joint venture, under which each party will now contribute funding to continued exploration and feasibility work in accordance with their respective interests in the project.
Coda is the operator and majority owner of the Elizabeth Creek Project, holding a 70 per cent interest with Torrens holding a 30 per cent interest.
Coda also holds an irrevocable option to acquire an additional 5 per cent interest in the project for a payment of A$1.5 million. This option may be exercised at any time up to 60 days from the parties reaching a Decision to Mine.
Coda’s Chief Executive Officer, Chris Stevens, said that this is another significant milestone in the Agreement signed between Coda and Terrace in 2017.
“Since that time Coda has contributed a total of $8.62 million in exploration and feasibility work under the farm-in. In the Joint Venture phase, both parties will now contribute to ongoing work at the highly prospective Elizabeth Creek Project on a pro-rata basis,” Mr Stevens said.
“We have come an extremely long way since 2017, having achieved JORC 2012 Compliant Indicated Mineral Resource Estimates over the MG14 and Windabout deposits with a total Resource of 280 kilotonnes of copper equivalent now on our books. Our focus is now on proving up Emmie Bluff as we work to convert the previously announced JORC Compliant Exploration Target into a JORC Compliant Mineral Resource Estimate by the third quarter of this year.”
“The Joint Venture Committee has now approved an exploration and feasibility budget to continue drilling and undertake the work required to deliver the Mineral Resource Estimate at Emmie Bluff as well as to test the highly prospective IOCG Target at Emmie Bluff Deeps and undertake an ambitious regional exploration programme across the Elizabeth Creek Tenure,” he shared.
“We expect the drill rigs to be turning again at Elizabeth Creek before the end of this month and we are looking forward to what we expect to be a really busy and potentially transformational 6-8 months for the newly-formed Joint Venture as we take our Mineral Resource base at Elizabeth Creek to the next level and begin testing highly-prospective IOCG targets at depth.”