Investors swarm over Mongolian copper-nickel discovery www.stockhead.com.au
After four years of systematic exploration in Mongolia, and with the help of BHP’s Xplor program in 2023, AZ9 has made what it has described as an ‘outstanding’ copper-nickel discovery at the Oval prospect in the Gobi-Altai region.
Drill hole OVD021 hit a massive sulphide intersection of 8.8m at 6.08% copper, 3.19% nickel, 1.63g/t PGEs, 0.11% cobalt from 107.2m in between high-grade zones of:
85m at 0.75% copper, 0.78% nickel, 0.15g/t 3E (PGEs), 0.04% cobalt from 99.35m; and
8m at 1.36% copper, 1.00% nickel, 0.44g/t 3E, 0.04% cobalt from 116m.
AZ9 said the most significant achievement of the drilling has been intercepting massive sulphides, which further confirms that the Oval magmatic sulphide system is rich and capable of forming high-grade ore.
“This is an exceptional result that shows the mineralisation system at Oval has potential for hosting a substantial deposit with a higher-grade zone of copper and nickel,” AZ9 managing director Gan-Ochir Zunduisuren said.
“Future exploration work at the Oval discovery will primarily focus on the extension of the high-grade zone to understand its size, true dip, and orientation.”
The journey of discovery will restart within two weeks at the Yambat project with more drilling planned.
This comes as mining companies scramble for copper supply on the back of constrained output growth due to high costs and depleting ore grade.
BHP, operators of the world’s biggest copper mine in Chile, claims the average grade of copper mines has declined by around 40% since 1991 and expects between one-third and one-half of global copper supply to face grade decline and ageing challenges over the next decade.
Mongolia is famously the home of Rio Tinto’s Oyu Tolgoi mine, which is on track to become a 500,000tpa producer via a major underground expansion.
Published Date:2024-10-28