Big NT land deal adds to Comet’s tale

Busy ASX-listed junior explorer, Comet Resources has added geographic and commodity diversity to its portfolio by forging ahead with a deal to acquire large tracts of prospective copper-gold and base metals exploration ground in the Northern Territory. Limited past exploration has turned up promising precious and red metal results.

The acquisition of about 840 square kilometres of central Australia, north-east of Alice Springs, adds to Comet’s copper and base metals exposure via its Barraba project in New South Wales.

It also complements its Santa Teresa gold venture in Mexico and the Springdale graphite project in Western Australia.

The new exploration licences and licence applications cover areas that have historically thrown up some interesting early-stage drilling and sampling results at the Oonagalabi copper-zinc, Paradise Well copper-gold and Silver Valley copper-gold-silver-lead prospects – all of which give Comet new opportunities to add some leverage to soaring metal prices.

The company says promising indications of near-surface gold and copper mineralisation have received little modern exploration focus.

Past drilling at Oonagalabi generated intersections such as 36.6m grading 1 per cent copper and 1.7 per cent zinc from only 1.5m and 5m at 1.26 per cent copper and 1.22 per cent zinc from 70m. At Paradise Well, rock chip samples assayed up to 8.9% copper and 2.2 grams per tonne gold, while at Silver Valley samples have given up 554 g/t silver, 20% lead, 11.9% copper and 2 g/t gold, providing some early-stage excitement for the project.

Comet says it plans to use modern exploration techniques to rapidly advance the scale of the known mineralisation, particularly where known geophysical and geochemical anomalies exist that have not been comprehensively drill tested.

Privately-owned Bath Resources will receive up to A$900,000 from Comet in staged payments for the NT tenements under the deal that was first flagged in March this year.

With copper prices recently touching records highs, it’s a great time for us to add this portfolio of both advanced and early-stage copper, gold and base metals targets to our existing copper exposure.

Comet has managed to put together an impressive portfolio of properties across four jurisdictions now. With nearly A$2.9 million in the bank at the end of March this year it is well placed to continue meaningful work programs that could potentially narrow the market’s focus on Comet as it sets about systematically testing its geological theories across its suite of projects.

Is your ASX-listed company doing something interesting? Contact: matt.birney@wanews.com.au