- Mining Associates appointed to undertake a review of the
Bronze Fox Intrusive Complex to provide an independent resource
model and assist in future exploration
- Review will support quantifying the previous discovery and
valuation analysis to peers
- Previous drilling has confirmed extensive broad lower-grade
copper-gold mineralization often with localized higher gradesacross
a 1.3km strike in the western central portion of the Bronze Fox
Intrusive Complex, including:
-
- F62 – 37m grading 0.83% copper (1.01% CuEq), within 391m @
0.50% CuEq 1
- BF7 – 32m grading 0.37% copper (0.91% CuEq), within 112m @
0.50% CuEq 1
- A two rig drill program is ongoing testing Devonian age
targets outside of Bronze Fox
VANCOUVER, Nov. 21, 2017 /CNW/ - Kincora Copper Ltd.
(the "Company", "Kincora") (TSXV:KCC) announces the appointment of
Mining Associates Limited ("Mining Associates") to undertake a
review of its wholly owned Bronze Fox copper-gold porphyry project
in the Southern Gobi, Mongolia.
Bronze Fox has an extensive mineralized footprint covering
over 40km2 at the Bronze Fox Intrusive Complex ("BFIC")
and 15km2 at the neighbouring Tourmaline Hills Intrusive
Complex ("THIC"), with only two active and unencumbered drilling
exploration field seasons across the adjacent two license portfolio
that hosts the full BFIC.
Total drilling by Kincora and others covers 169 holes for 55,908
metres across the portfolio. Efforts to date have focused at the
western central portion of the BFIC where 75 holes for 23,130
metres has been drill across a 1.4km by 2.4km zone, with
mineralization encountered often from surface to a maximum vertical
depth of over 1km. This latter zone will be the focus of the
Mining Associates review and modelling, including grade estimate
and tonnage target.
In Kincora's one active field season of unimpeded access to both
licenses drilling confirmed:
- At the West Kasulu prospect drill hole F62 intersected 37
metres at 1.01% CuEq (from 573m) within 794m at 0.40% CuEq, at the
western central portion of the BFIC 1.
- The Tourmaline Hills prospect at the THIC, with 9 of the 15
holes returning intervals of over 1g/t gold (up to 7.7g/t), often
with elevated copper values.
Sam Spring, President & CEO,
commented: "There is a substantial copper-gold system at the
western central portion of the BFIC, within the larger two
mineralized intrusions at Bronze Fox. With unencumbered access to
both licenses and an improved copper price, the Mining Associates
review is expected to independently quantify the previous
discovery, which will assist valuations to peers, define areas of
potential higher grade and adjacent exploration targets that may
justify further drilling to expand the mineralized system and
define a maiden NI 43-101 compliant resource.
Relative to the other copper-gold projects in the wider belt
that have existing resources Bronze Fox has had modest previous
drilling. For the one field season, in 2012, when Kincora was
unimpeded with its exploration efforts at the Bronze Fox project,
the Company returned one of the most favourable exploration results
in the region at the West Kasulu prospect, which resulted in
significant interest from both industry and financial investors at
a meaningful premium to our current capitalization. In the
two years of relatively early stage exploration by Ivanhoe, only
one with drilling activities, Bronze Fox was a priority exploration
target, excluded from the BHP regional joint
venture.
Current field season activities continue to focus on the
Devonian age targets south of Bronze Fox. First phase drilling was
recently completed at Bayan Tal and two rigs are currently
completing a four-hole program on the western margins of the
Ulgii Khud massif. Interpretation of new surface geology, drilling
and geophysics is ongoing, including both the East Tsagaan Suvarga
and Red Well targets. Results of
these work programs at our pipeline of targets will be provided to
the market after the Company's next technical
workshop."
Link to accompanying updated corporate presentation:
http://kincoracopper.com/investors/corporate-presentation
Mining Associates review
Mining Associates has been
appointed to undertake a review of previous drilling at the BFIC
including the western central portion where 75 holes for 23,130
metres has been drill across a 1.4km by 2.4km zone. Within this
zone broad lower-grade copper-gold mineralization often with
localized higher grades has been encountered across a 1.3km strike,
often from surface to a maximum vertical depth of up to 1280m
(refer Figures 3 & 4).
The review will provide an independent 3D block model that
supports tonnage and grade estimates, and is expected to assist in
providing parameters for future exploration and a potential NI
43-101 compliant resource.
Mining Associates have extensive experience in resource
estimation on porphyry style deposits, including Xanadu Mines' flagship Kharmagtai project,
located 140km from Bronze Fox, being a similar age and style
Carboniferous mineralized system, having undertaken a resource
estimation and valuation prior to definition of a JORC compliant
resource and drill targeting.
Kharmagtai has a March 2015 maiden
JORC resource of 203Mt @ 0.34% copper
and 0.33g/t gold for a contained metal content of 1500Mlb copper
and 2.2Moz gold. The total resource is contained within three pit
shells and underground resources over a 1.8km strike and depths of
up to 600m at the Stockwork Hill/Altan Tolgoi, White Hill /Tsagaan
Sudal and Copper Hill/Zesen Uul deposits, based on 108,130m of
drilling across the wider 66.5km2 mining license with a
current area of interest of 25km2.
Over 50,000 metres of drilling has been undertaken since the
definition of the maiden resource both searching for a fourth
nearer surface finger porphyry and/or higher grade extension at
depth (recent drilling to 1000 metres). Recent exploration results
by Xanadu have been very well received by the market supporting the
September 28th 2017
private placement of A$15.4 million,
a current A$159 million market
capitalization(2) and encouragement for other
copper-gold explorers in the wider Southern Gobi region.
Location
The Bronze Fox project is situated 520km
south-southeast of Mongolia's
capital city Ulaanbaatar in the Mandakh and Manlai Subprovinces, of
the Dornogobi Province. The sub-provincial centre of Mandakh
village, population over 1500, is located 40km to the northeast of
the license which hosts a Kincora commissioned water well near the
eastern margin of the BFIC.
Bronze Fox is approximately 40km to the northwest of MAKs
Tsagaan Suvarga copper development project and 45km from Kincora's
all year around White Pearl camp. Rio Tinto's Tier 1 Oyu Tolgoi
copper-gold project is approximately 140km to the southwest and the
distance to the Chinese boarder is only approximately 185km across
desert steppe, generally consisting of gravel covered plains with
low hills, sparse vegetation and population.
Local Geology
The Bronze Fox project lies in the
eastern part of the Gurvansayhan island arc terrane and while
outside of the interpreted Devonian belt that hosts both Tsagaan
Suvarga and Oyu Tolgoi, is within a 100km parallel belt of
Carboniferous mineralized porphyry systems. The arc is an extension
of the much larger Tian Shan belt
that can be traced for over 5,000km through China and into Kazakhstan.
Two large intrusive complexes are hosted at Bronze Fox, the
Tourmaline Hills Intrusive Complex ("THIC"), approximately 5x2 kms
in diameter, located solely on the western license (total license
size 246km2) and the Bronze Fox Intrusive Complex
("BFIC"), approximately 6x2 km, with the BFIC spread across the two
licenses (noting the eastern licenses covers 223km2).
Both complexes are located within a magmatic arc demonstrated as
fertile for porphyry style deposits with only two active and
unencumbered drilling exploration field seasons across the
consolidated license portfolio.
Outcropping mineralization, particularly at the BFIC, is
extensive by comparison to the majority of the arc and has been
observed in rock chip samples in a zone stretching up to 50km to
the north with the Shuteen lithocap immediately to the
south.
Background
Given the amount of outcropping
mineralization it is unsurprisingly that Bronze Fox was initially
explored by Soviet Union and
Mongolian prospectors with a number of holes drill and extensive
trenches still open, but no data remains from this first phase of
activities.
The next phase of active exploration was then undertaken by
Ivanhoe Mines Ltd ("Ivanhoe"), between 2004 and 2005. In 2004,
mapping, geochemical sampling and ground magnetic programs were
initiated; over 6,000 rock chip samples assayed and over 1000-line
km of ground magnetics were acquired. In 2005, further geological
mapping, geochemical sampling, trenching, induced polarization
surveys and reconnaissance diamond drilling for 24 holes were
undertaken inside the license and adjacent licenses.
Ivanhoe targeted the surface expression of Au-Cu and Mo-As
mineralisation at the then named Bronze Fox and East Fox prospects
(later respectively referred to by Kincora as the West
Kasulu/Shargal Tolgoi and Leca
Pass). Ivanhoe reported best intersections of 373m @ 0.29%
Cu from 125.7m in Hole BFD024 and 280m @ 0.29% Cu from 160m
(BFD005).
Bronze Fox was one of the four projects (including Oyu Tolgoi
and Kharmagtai) that Ivanhoe excluded from the BHP Joint Venture
between 2006-2009. However, having not yet converted the
exploration to mining license the project reverted back to the
State during the period of the Windfall Profits Tax and initial
negotiations to form an Investment Agreement to support the
development of Oyu Tolgoi.
In 2010, with the eastern section of the original Ivanhoe Bronze
Fox project was reissued to Nadmin LLC, which hosts the eastern
license referred to in Figures 2 and 3. That year, 25 holes for
5,164 metres of RC (3,722m) and diamond (1,442m) were completed,
following 12 lines of Induced Polarization (IP) for 61,000-line
metres.
As part of the formation of Kincora Copper, Micromine Pty Ltd
completed a NI 43-101 Technical Report on the prospectivity of the
project in April 2011 ahead of a
C$12.1 million private placement
which closed in July 2011. This raise
supported 23 diamond holes for 12,435m that year with 22 of those
holes intersecting either broad zones of lower grade copper-gold or
gold mineralization, some with localized areas of higher grade,
across a wider strike zone than that previously tested by
Ivanhoe.
Kincora consolidated the original Ivanhoe Bronze Fox project in
early 2012 via the Golden Grouse LLC acquisition to secure the
western license that enable testing of the full BFIC again as well
as the THIC, the latter which still has very modest drilling (in
total 6,539 metres in 26 holes). Across the two licenses, 40 holes
for 15,809m were completed in 2012, including 10 shallow holes for
metallurgical test at the West Kasulu prospect for a potential
smaller scale oxide open pit development project (with initial
metallurgical tests and desktop studies undertaken).
The drilling results from late 2012 were encouraging with a
number of porphyry intersections confirming the potential for a
high-grade deposit (for example localized 4% copper in the last
hole (F72) drilled – Leca Pass
prospect, based on a 2012 IP target) and broad lower grade (for
example over 794m @ 0.40% CuEq, including 37m @ 1.07% CuEq in Hole
F62, West Kasulu1). Similar lower grade (0.2-0.4%
copper) results have been returned across various broad sections of
a 40km2 mineralized (and open) footprint but hole F62
demonstrated that the mineralization could extend to depth and with
more extensive zones of higher-grade mineralization. The results of
vein and alteration study, SWIR study on alteration minerals,
indicate that the zone of drilling at the West Kasulu prospect was
possibly in a peripheral of a porphyry mineral system.
Early in 2013, post the 2012 change in government, concerns
regarding security of tenure emerged for the western license of
Bronze Fox which was later revoked as part of the 106 license
dispute. This dispute was resolved in an equitable manner in late
2015 but impacted exploration efforts across the BFIC, particularly
the western central zone, over that period. Limited exploration has
taken place since due to depressed copper prices, focused on
securing the IBEX transaction and resuming exploration at multiple
Devonian age targets, and access to funding despite the dispute
resolution for Bronze Fox.
Given the extensive zones of mineralization encountered in 2012
to depths beyond the coverage limits of previous IP survey's and
analysis, an extensive 49km2 deep IP survey was
conducted utilising Search on the eastern license. The 2013 IP
analysis illustrated that prior drilling, particularly outside of
the West Kasulu prospect in the western central section of the
BFIC, failed to adequately test most large chargeability high
anomalies with previous encountered mineralization coincident with
lower priority IP chargeability zones. Analysis of the 2013 IP
results coupled with the lithogeochemcial analysis helped explained
previous results and lead to a reinterpretation and refinement of
targets.
The 2014 drill program for 10128.9m in 15 holes tested various
targets away from the boundary of the western license (due to the
then uncertain nature for resolution of the 106 license dispute)
with scout holes to better understand the potential for broad zones
of mineralization and a potential higher grade orebody based on
geophysical targets, primarily driven by the extensive 2013 Induced
Polarization survey. The 2014 results illustrated that geophysics
(IP and magnetics in particular) are an effective tool for
identifying the target areas and prospective mineralized systems
(outside of these zones little mineralization is returned) but once
within the mineralized system geology interpretation is critical to
assist vector to and locate high-grade zone(s).
The Mining Associates review is expected to independently
quantify the previous discovery at the BFIC, which will assist
relative valuation discussions to peers, define areas of potential
higher grade and adjacent exploration targets that may justify
further drilling to expand the mineralized system and also the
definition of a maiden NI 43-101 compliant resource.
Further advancement of the Bronze Fox project post resolution of
the 106-license dispute has been impacted by the copper price (2016
to early-mid 2017), Kincora completing the IBEX transaction
(2Q'16-4Q'16), resuming exploration at various Devonian age targets
(3Q'17) and access to capital (two tranche $5.9 million private placements only completed
3Q'17).
Notes: 1
- F62 – 37m grading 0.83% copper and 0.14g/t gold (1.01%
CuEq), within 391m @ 0.50% CuEq (0.41% copper and 0.08g/t
gold)
- BF7 – 32m grading 0.37% copper and 0.90g/t gold (0.91%
CuEq), within 112m @ 0.50% CuEq (0.30% copper and 0.33g/t
gold)
- The Copper Equivalent (CuEq) calculation represents an
estimate for the total value for each metal, multiplied by the
conversion factor, summed and expressed in equivalent copper
percentage based on current spot prices (Cu $3.11/lb, Au $1279/oz and Mo $7.1/lb). Grades have not been adjusted for
metallurgical or refining recoveries and the copper equivalent
grades are of an exploration nature only and intended for
summarizing grade. The copper equivalent calculation is intended as
an indicative value only.
2
Closing price on the ASX November 17th,
2017.
About Kincora
Kincora is a junior resource company engaged in the acquisition,
exploration and development of mineral properties, with a focus on
Tier 1 copper-gold projects in Mongolia. For further information:
www.kincoracopper.com.
Qualified Person
The scientific and technical information in this news release was
prepared in accordance with the standards of the Canadian Institute
of Mining, Metallurgy and Petroleum and National Instrument 43-101
– Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects ("NI 43-101") and
was reviewed, verified and compiled by Kincora's geological staff
under the supervision of Peter
Leaman, Senior Vice-President of Exploration of Kincora
Copper, who is the Qualified Person for the purpose of
NI 43-101.
Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation
Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the
TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or
accuracy of this release.
SOURCE Kincora Copper Limited