Australian copper explorer Tethyan Copper has announced a new discovery on its Reko Diq property in western Pakistan, possibly with hopes of luring a white knight in its takeover battle with Hong Kong merchant bank Crosby Capital.
The new discovery, at Sor Baroot, 20 km west of the main Reko Diq copper-porphyry project, returned a 261-metre intersection with average grades of 0.34% copper and 0.19 gram gold per tonne. The intersection included a near-surface interval of 45 metres of oxide material, which graded 0.66% copper and 0.31 gram gold.
Three other holes on Sor Baroot intersected lower grades, one cutting 99 metres grading 0.29% copper, another 282 metres grading 0.15%, and the third 180 metres grading 0.12%. All carried low gold credits.
Crosby Capital has offered A64 per share for Tethyan, which values the company at A$101 million. Tethyan has asked shareholders to take no action on the offer. Since then the company has come out with a series of announcements about the project.
Drilling at the H8 copper target, Tethyan intersected significant widths of copper mineralization in twelve holes. Copper grades are generally in the 0.3% to 0.5% range, with gold credits mainly 0.1 to 0.25 grams per tonne. Tethyan is working on a resource estimate for H8.
H8 lies between the Tanjeel prospect (also called H4), where an indicated resource of 152 million tonnes grading 0.7% copper has been defined. Feasibility work has now identified a 129-million-tonne probable reserve that grades 0.7% copper.
An open pit at Tanjeel would be a starter project for a larger operation based on the property’s Western Porphyries, which have an inferred resource of 729 million tonnes running 0.64% copper and 0.39 gram gold per tonne.
Recent drilling at the Western Porphyries intersected 511 metres of mineralization with grades of 0.66% copper and 0.42 gram gold per tonne.
Tethyan has completed a 75% earn-in on the project from BHP Billiton (BHP-N).
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