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Stockhead - Antipa expands Minyari with new gold-copper discovery

• Phase 1 drilling results in new discovery of gold and copper at Minyari

• Antipa believes the new gold-copper zone represents a potential step-change for the broader Minyari asset

• Exploration drilling and PFS workstreams are ongoing
  

Special report: Results from the first 66 holes of ongoing Phase 1 drilling have confirmed a new gold-copper discovery for Antipa Minerals south of the Fiama and Rizzo deposits within its Minyari Project in WA’s Paterson Province.

As well as delivering extensions to mineralisation at the GEO-01 Main Zone deposit within Minyari Dome, the assays represent just 29% of the current program and validate Antipa Minerals’ (ASX:AZY) dual-track exploration strategy of growing the Minyari Dome resource and unlocking new resource potential via discovery, with the ultimate objective being to expand the life of the development opportunity.

New extensive, shallow high-grade gold-copper zones have been outlined with intersections such as 21m at 1.8g/t gold and 0.06% copper from 44m (RC drill hole) and 41m at 0.16g/t gold and 0.15% copper from 4m (vertical air core drill hole).
Step-out success has also been demonstrated with results of 15m at 2g/t gold and 0.04% copper from 336m, 15m at 0.9g/t gold and 0.12% copper from 287m as well as 44m at 0.4g/t gold and 0.06% copper from 82m.

Mineralisation remains open at the GEO-01 Main Zone, GEO-01 Central, Fiama, Minella and multiple prospects at Minyari Dome.

Assays from 20 RC holes completed at the Parklands target have returned limited low-grade gold and copper mineralisation.

With multiple areas of mineralisation uncovered during the current campaign providing new high-priority targets, any further drilling at Parklands is contingent on further integrated interpretation.

Building on current 2.5Moz gold resource

Drilling was designed to expand Antipa’s existing resource which stands at 2.5Moz of gold, including 1.7 Moz at 1.6 g/t in the indicated category.

The focus was on extending the resources at Minyari South and across the GEO-01 combined 1km x 700m opportunity footprint, including at the Main Zone, Minella, Fiama and Central deposits – all of which remain open down-dip and in some cases along strike.

Minyari Dome is one of three projects that Antipa recently consolidated into its massive Minyari Project with the other two being Wilki and Paterson.

Antipa’s landholding covers 4,100km2 of ground in the Paterson Province – one of the great gold-copper mineral provinces in Australia, hosting some significant tier-1 gold-copper projects including Telfer, Winu, Havieron and Nifty.

Telfer has been a real drawcard with a pre-mining inventory of 32Moz of gold, a million tonnes of copper and about 25Moz of silver.

However, the region’s quirks – including a relatively thick layer of cover in many parts – meant that other than Telfer and Nifty, which were discovered between 1972 and 1985 due to outcropping mineralisation, it remained largely neglected since the mid-1980s.

The vast majority of the gold dominant eastern region of the Paterson Province is tied up by just three players, Antipa, Greatland Resources and Rio Tinto.

“Largest ever” drilling campaign

Managing Director Roger Mason said these latest results represented further exploration success highlighting the prospectivity of Antipa’s ground.

“In particular, the newly defined gold-copper zone south of Fiama and Rizzo represents a step-change for the broader Minyari gold-copper project, while the extensions to GEO-01 and Minella reinforce our confidence in the scalability of the existing resource,” Mason said.

“With drilling ongoing, and only approximately 30% of assays returned so far, we are very encouraged by the early outcomes of our largest-ever program.

“In parallel, our Pre-feasibility Study (PFS) workstreams continue to advance, positioning Minyari Dome as a standout development opportunity in the Paterson Province.”

What’s next?

An updated resource, incorporating the 2025 Phase 1 drill results, is scheduled for completion in Q3 this year.

The majority assays from the Phase 1 program remain outstanding.

Various PFS technical and non-technical workstreams have been advanced to further de-risk and refine the development opportunity at Minyari Dome whilst advancing the permitting process.

With the completion of the RC and diamond core components of the Phase 1 growth and discovery drill program, the PFS resource definition program has commenced and is utilising two diamond core rigs and one RC rig.

Recruitment activities are ongoing to expand the company’s in-house board, technical and study capabilities in alignment with its project advancement plans.

This article was developed in collaboration with Antipa Minerals, a Stockhead advertiser at the time of publishing.

This article does not constitute financial product advice. 

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