Tennant Minerals (ASX: TMS) has joined fellow Northern Territory explorers Emmerson Resources and CuFe Ltd to develop plans to jointly develop their respective copper-gold projects using a single mining facility in the Tennant Creek region within the Northern Territory.
The aim of the three-way tie-up is to assess the best options moving forward, including the single multi-user processing facility, the requirements for obtaining environmental permits and approvals, mine scheduling and the required infrastructure for the area needed to aid the project such as power, water, transportation and accommodation.
The partners will complete a scoping study to determine the best pathway to develop their respective deposits and if positive, they will undertake a definitive-feasibility-study (DFS) on the chosen options for development.
The three companies have all put in some hard yards in the region within the past few years and will all look to contribute their respective projects to the initiative with initial activities set to begin before the end of the year.Potential synergies will also be assessed with other explorers and developers in the region to discover if further benefits can be brought to the partnership.
A planned committee made up of the CEO from each company and technical staff will review data and look to establish a pathway to bring separate mines into production using a single processing facility.
“The production history of Tennant Creek copper and gold supports the shared facility model we plan to investigate in this collaboration. The strategy will provide a shorter pathway to production and incentivise Tennant to continue its exploration effort targeting further discoveries like Bluebird on our tenements.” Tennant Minerals managing director Vincent Algar
Emmerson Resources managing director Mike Dunbar said that with modern environmental, regulatory and financial hurdles, developing modest-sized deposits independently is significantly harder now than historically and a collaborative approach of working together with like-minded ASX-listed companies is the best way of developing the field.
Mark Hancock, executive director of CuFe Limited, said the ability to leverage from recent high-grade discoveries made by Tennant and Emmerson in the area provides a unique development opportunity.
Together the junior mining trio control 7.3 million tonnes grading 0.6 grams per tonne gold and 1.7 per cent copper for resources of 145,000 ounces of gold and 127,000 tonnes of copper.
CuFe is a 55 per cent stakeholder and operator of a joint-venture (JV) which owns the Orlando-Gecko and Goanna copper-gold projects within the region.
Recent “eyebrow-raising” discoveries in the region include Tennant’s Barkly project with hits at its Bluebird prospect of 61.8m going 2.3 per cent copper and 0.4g/t gold and 63m running 2.1 per cent copper and 4.6g/t gold.
Emmerson has also revealed coffee spitting returns of 119m at 3.3 per cent copper and 0.87g/t gold and a 94.4m intersection grading 2.74 per cent copper and 5.58g/t gold from its Hermitage discovery.
Historically, the Tennant Creek mineral field operated with centralised processing facilities and fed by a number of high-grade mines. The alliance will investigate whether this type of facility may warrant being replicated.
Emmerson has an existing carbon-in-leach gold only facility being constructed in the area by its JV partner TCMG, however the potential proposed facility by the group would be wider-reaching and include processing of copper and critical minerals.
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