Anglo Australian strikes Kimberley base metals JV

ASX-listed explorer, Anglo Australian Resources has received a final payment of $900,000 from AuKing Mining for a 25 per cent stake in a joint venture covering base metals at its Koongie Park project about 20km south-west of Halls Creek in WA’s eastern Kimberley region.

Brisbane-based AuKing paid Anglo Australian a total of $1 million for the 25 per cent stake. It can increase its JV interest to 75 per cent by meeting earn-in milestones spread across the next three years and funding exploration and project development studies on Koongie Park to the tune of a further $3 million.

Perth-based Anglo Australian retains the right to explore for and develop gold and other precious metals deposits within the 500-square-kilometre Koongie Park project area.

The project takes in the Onedin and Sandiego deposits that host a combined indicated and inferred resource of 6.8 million tonnes at average grades of 1.3 per cent copper and 4.1 per cent zinc for a contained 88,400 tonnes of copper and 278,800 tonnes of zinc.

The Koongie Park tenements encompass more than 40km of the Koongie Park Formation that Anglo Australian describes as being prospective for volcanogenic massive sulphide-style, or “VMS” base metal deposits.

The Koongie Park Formation exhibits a deep weathered profile at Sandiego and particularly Onedin resulting in three weathering domains – oxidised zone at surface, primary zone at depth and transition zone in between.

AuKing says each zone has very different mineral assemblages and consequently distinctive metallurgical properties.

Anglo Australian has punched out 245 reverse circulation and diamond holes for an aggregate coverage of 50,417m at Koongie Park, focusing on resource, metallurgical and geotechnical drilling at Sandiego and Onedin.

The $50 million market-cap company recently released a maiden open-pit indicated and inferred mineral resource estimate for its flagship Mandilla gold project of 15.6 million tonnes grading an average 1 g/t for 500,400 ounces of contained gold.

Mandilla, about 70km south of Kalgoorlie and about 25km south-west of Kambalda, takes in the Mandilla East and Mandilla South deposits.

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