Wmc Signals Big Qld Copper Find

Sydney Morning Herald

Friday December 13, 1991

By BRUCE HEXTALL Resources Writer

Western Mining Corp Ltd has signalled that it could become a significant player in the Queensland copper business, thanks to an encouraging find in the State's north-west.

The company announced yesterday that it had made a significant discovery about 40 kilometres north-west of Cloncurry but added that drilling results to date made it difficult to assess the find's potential.

Nevertheless, base metal finds are few and far between, meaning that anything with some promise is sufficient to excite the market.

The question on everyone's lips yesterday was whether the Mt Fort Constantine gold-copper discovery was in the same ilk as the Century and Dugald River base metal discoveries made by CRA and its joint venture partners a year ago.

"Certainly not," was the reply by a WMC spokesmen yesterday who said it was early days for the exploration program, although admitting that the drilling results were sufficiently significant to inform the market.

WMC, which is earning 70 per cent interest in the joint venture from Hunter Resources, said yesterday drilling had intersected encouraging primary and secondary copper-gold mineralisation.

A limited diamond drilling program at the Ernest Henry section on the joint venture tenements intersected wide-width copper-gold mineralisation in three of four holes completed.

Assays were not available from a fourth hole drilled 250 metres north of the second hole but good results from that hole would significantly expand the resource potential.

WMC said the geometry of the mineralised zones had not clearly been established at this early stage of the work program.

© 1991 Sydney Morning Herald

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