CURRENT JOINT VENTURE PROJECTS
Major projects successfully joint ventured allow the Company to retain free-carried interest and preserve funds for the core projects in Kalgoorlie and Pilbara Iron Ore.
Further to the Company¡¦s philosophy of focusing on its key projects, several of the Company's non-core projects have been successfully joint ventured, enabling the Company to hold tenure over a large range of projects and exposing shareholders to greater potential exploration success.
Huckitta Project – Northern Territory
(Mithril Resources Limited earning 80%)
Mithril Resources Limited (ASX:MTH) entered a farm-in and joint venture agreement with Sammy Resources Pty Limited (‘Sammy’) a wholly owned subsidiary of the Company. Mithril may earn an 80% interest in Northern Territory Exploration Licences 25643 and 25653 which are contiguous with Mithril’s existing Huckitta Project to the north and the Casey Project to the south.
Geological mapping on the Sammy JV tenements has identified a new prospect area called Percy where a number of poorly exposed and weathered gabbroic bodies were found to be anomalous in nickel, copper and PGE’s. Rock chip assay results from these bodies have returned up to 615ppm Ni, 572ppm Cu, 1620ppmCr and 97ppb Pt+Pd+Au which are consistent in composition with the mineralised gabbroic bodies at the Blackadder and Baldrick Prospects on the Huckitta Project. The contacts of these bodies which are the favourable position for the potential accumulation nickel sulphide mineralisation are not exposed.
Jillewarra Project
(Red Emperor Resources NL (ASX:RMP) are earning an initial 51% interest in the project through the expenditure of $1,200,000)
An Airborne Electromagnetic (AEM) survey was completed by GPX Surveys Pty Ltd during September and October 2008. The survey was conducted over the Hewitt’s Find Prospect Area within E51/1114 and P51/2565, an area prospective for gold and massive base metal mineralisation. Although some quite extensive exploration programs have taken place in the past, the effectiveness of the work is debatable, and in the case of base metal exploration, modern AEM techniques provide a more powerful exploration tool able to identify massive sulphides at depth beneath considerable cover.
The survey followed previous soil sampling and drilling programs in the area that showed positive Ni, Cu and Au concentrations, and the objective of the Heliborne RepTEM survey was to identify bedrock conductors that could represent the source of these anomalies.
The RepTEM survey worked well within the Project area and a number of conductive zones of interest were identified, several major structures were also interpreted from the RepTEM and magnetic data.
Proposed work includes the field investigation of all target zones to explain their anomalies and reconnaissance along interpreted faults to find ground evidence of these structures.
Following field investigation, additional programs of soil and/or rock chip sampling will be planned over the target zones. Targets that are situated within prospective geological settings will have additional modeling completed on them to constrain the geometry and position of the target.
Quartz Circle
(Graynic Metals Ltd 80%)
The Company had agreed to divest an 80% interest in Cazaly's Quartz Circle Project to Graynic Metals Ltd (ASX code:GYN). Cazaly shareholders Cazaly received a 1 for 4 in speci distribution of shares in Graynic as part of the spin out of Cazaly assets.
The Quartz Circle Project is situated in the Eastern Pilbara Region of Western Australia and covers approximately 65 square kilometres of ground prospective for base metals and gold. Numerous phases of exploration have been completed since the 1970’s with significant intercepts including 17.74m @ 16.1% Zn, 7.5m @ 16.0% Zn (with elevated lead and cadmium), 4m @ 9.3% Cu + 13.3 g/t Au and 4m @ 1.96% Cu + 11.6 g/t Au.
The Quartz Circle Project has the hallmarks of a large mineralised system, and there are indications that the base metals are VMS in style. Some of the drilling results to date have been outstanding, but the various separate prospects have yet to be linked in a meaningful way. Conventional exploration techniques (drilling, sampling, geophysics) will be supplemented by detailed geological and alteration mapping in an effort to reconstruct the original volcanic environment.
