The Northern Miner has compiled the top 10 drill results year-to-date for major metals, including copper. Drill holes are ranked by copper grade x width.
Drilling in the southern hemisphere has produced the best copper assays so far this year to July 31. BHP’s (ASX: BHP) producing Olympic Dam mine in southern Australia had the best result. Filo Corp. (TSX: FIL) and Aldebaran Resources (TSXV: ALDE) came next with their thousand-metre-plus intercepts at Argentina’s Filo del Sol and Altar projects.
Top copper drill results year to date. Credit: The Northern Miner
BHP’s Olympic Dam
Known as one of the world’s largest copper, uranium, gold and silver orebodies, Olympic Dam produced the best drill intercept in the year to date. Hole RU50-12091 cut 580 metres grading 2% copper from 516 metres depth, for a grade x width value of 1,287.6.
This intercept, reported on Jan. 18 was from BHP’s ongoing exploration program at Olympic Dam, where it has planned over 62,000 metres of drilling. The goal is to uncover high-grade copper zones along more than 2 km of strike and over 1 km in depth. The resource remains open at depth and along strike.
BHP is progressing with various growth options at its Copper South Australia operations, which include Olympic Dam.
It aims to increase copper production to over 500,000 tonnes per year, or over 700,000 tonnes on a copper-equivalent basis, when considering co-products like gold, silver, and uranium.
A significant part of this plan includes introducing a two-stage smelting process at Olympic Dam, which remains subject to approval.
Olympic Dam hosts proven and probable reserves of 634 million tonnes at 1.69% copper for 10.7 million tonnes of metal, and 8.3 billion measured and indicated tonnes at 0.75% copper for 61.8 million contained tonnes.
Filo Corp.’s Filo del Sol
Filo del Sol in Argentina showed why it’s the target of a $4.5-billion joint acquisition by BHP (NYSE: BHP; LSE: BHP) and Lundin Mining (TSX: LUN), delivering the second best result on our list. On Jan. 25, its owner, Filo Corp. reported that hole FSDH094 returned 1,289 metres grading 0.6% copper from 192 metres depth for a width x grade value of 765.8.
This hole further extended the known high-grade zones within the deposit, contributing to the overall understanding of the project’s mineralization potential, the company said in a release.
This result was from Filo’s 38,785 metre exploration drilling program completed last year. Nine rigs are still at work at the site, the company said.
Although the company had to pause drilling in the second quarter due to bad weather, recent assays confirm the significant scale of the Filo del Sol deposit. Eight holes were in progress before winter conditions halted operations. The team will restart drilling when conditions improve.
These assays, including impressive intervals from FSDH093 and FSDH094, are thought to expand the known boundaries of the deposit. Filo aims to provide an updated sulphide resource estimate early in the fourth quarter.
BHP and Lundin’s friendly bid for Filo would consolidate the project with the nearby Josemaria project under a new joint venture. The companies say the partnership would provide the financial and technical resources needed to advance development of the world-class assets.
Filo del Sol holds 432.6 million indicated tonnes grading 0.33% copper for 3.2 billion lb. of copper metal.
Aldebaran’s Altar
Altar, also in Argentina, delivered the third-best copper intercept of the year so far. Aldebaran reported on June 17 that hole ALD-24-243 returned 1,517 metres at 0.5% copper from 325 metres depth, giving it a width x grade value of 743.3.
That hole cut one of the longest continuous runs of mineralization ever recorded at the site, and expanded known mineralization to the north.
It came from the company’s 20,000-metre program over 2023-24, which completed 20 diamond drill holes.
Be the first to comment on "TNM Drill Down: Australia, Argentina top copper ranking"