Alkane Resources Ltd (ASX:ALK, OTC:ALKEF) has reported extensive high-grade results from its now complete infill drilling program at the Boda prospect within its Northern Molong porphyry project in central NSW, which the company says has potential to be a large, tier-one gold-copper project.
Extending over five kilometres from Kaiser to Boda, through Boda 2-3 and south to Boda 4, the drilling was designed to infill the inferred Boda mineral resource estimation to a nominal 50 metre grid spacing.
Alkane managing director Nic Earner said: “Boda continues to evolve towards its potential as a large, tier one gold-copper resource.
“The current program of infill drilling is now complete, it is particularly pleasing to see not only further mineable grades over extensive intervals, but also new zones of higher-grade mineralisation and expansions of high-grade zones previously identified.
“Our exploration team is continuing infill drilling at Kaiser, as well as working on the updated resource estimate for Boda. This is building to a preliminary economic assessment that is currently underway and will be completed once the Kaiser resource is updated in Q1 2024.”
Resource estimate update underway
The initial inferred mineral resource estimate for Boda — of 624 million tonnes grading at 0.26g/t gold, 0.14% copper for 5.21 million ounces gold and 0.90 million tonnes copper — was confined to a surface area of 1,000 metres strike length and 500 metres width.
The recent and now complete drilling targeted the northwest extension to Boda and south extension to Boda 2-3 outside of the current deposit envelope, as well as infilling the current resource and defining the higher-grade breccia zones within the 500-metre strike length core zone.
Assay results have been received from the final four RC drill holes for a total of 1,288 metres — infilling the shallow component of the resource at Boda, and for a final thirteen diamond core drill holes that were designed to infill the Boda resource for a total of 10,428 metres.
An updated mineral resource estimation is now underway for Boda, including Boda 2-3, which Alkane expects to be completed in Q4 2023.
Drilling is now focused on infilling the Kaiser resource area, with initial drilling results expected next month ahead of an updated resource estimate in Q1 2024.
Highly prospective for large scale copper-gold deposits
The Northern Molong Project, at the northern end of the Molong Volcanic Belt of the Macquarie Arc, is considered highly prospective for large scale porphyry and epithermal gold-copper deposits.
Exploration here has identified six discrete magnetic/intrusive complexes – Kaiser, Boda, Boda South, Comobella, Driell Creek and Finns Crossing – within a 15-kilometre northwest trending corridor.
The corridor is defined by intermediate intrusives, lavas and breccias, extensive alteration and widespread, low-grade, gold-copper mineralisation. Alkane has defined two significant gold-copper resources defined within the corridor at Boda and Kaiser.