Castillo Copper Ltd (ASX:CCZ, LSE:CCZ) has delivered a revitalised copper resource estimate at the Cangai Copper Mine in northern New South Wales, bringing it one step closer to developing one of the highest-grading copper resources in Australia.
Partnered with a specialist geology team, the copper stock established a 4.6-million-tonne orebody, grading 2.45% copper for around 114,000 tonnes of the versatile base metal.
This marks a sizeable upgrade on the 2017 estimate, which reported 3.3 million tonnes at 3.35% copper for 108,000 tonnes.
There are also zinc, gold and silver credits (grading 0.57% zinc, 0.29 g/t gold and 15.3 g/t silver) that modestly boost the mineral resource estimate.
With the revised resource at hand, the Castillo board is highly optimistic it can align with a strategic partner to fully develop Cangai’s copper potential and map a path to market.
More to explore
Plenty of reverse circulation and diamond drill work has factored into the Cangai resource update but the Castillo team believes there’s still more exploration potential on the project’s horizon.
For one, the project’s underlying orebody – which commences from surface – is not fully defined and remains open to the east, southeast and down dip.
There are also several sizeable downhole electromagnetic conductors that have the potential to extend Cangai’s known copper mineralisation along strike.
“Excellent value-add outcome”
Castillo chair Ged Hall said: “Having a high-grade mineral resource estimate for circa 114,000 tonnes of copper metal plus significant exploration potential is an excellent value add outcome.
“Moreover, when reconciling Cangai Copper Mine’s favourable fundamentals with long-term global demand trends for copper, the board believes it has a compelling business case to leverage and align with a strategic development partner.”