VANCOUVER, BC, Sept. 29, 2020 /CNW/ - Kincora Copper Ltd. (the "Company", "Kincora") (TSXV: KCC) is pleased to provide a corporate update for release to market including:
- Corporate presentation
- Shareholder letter
Corporate strategy update
September 29th, 2020
Dear shareholders,
At Kincora Copper our focus is world-class copper-gold porphyry discoveries with a near term ambition to become the clear leading listed pure play porphyry explorer in Australia's foremost porphyry belt.
Kincora has a strategic and district scale position in the key belts of the Macquarie Arc, within the Lachlan Fold Belt, in Central West NSW.
In August 2020, the Company completed an oversubscribed $5.33 million equity raising. We welcome our new shareholders to the register and thank existing shareholders for their continued support.
The primary use of funds is significantly expanding the ongoing drilling program at our flagship Trundle copper-gold porphyry project from 6 holes to potentially over 20 as well as better understanding the potential of the near surface skarn system. We are also preparing for an IPO on the ASX and progressing work on our 7 additional licences in NSW.
The Company has assembled an industry leading technical team. This team has made multiple Tier 1 copper discoveries with a unique knowledge and a competitive advantage in the Macquarie Arc – indeed, our technical director, John Holliday, is the foremost porphyry figure in this region. Our board and management have "skin in the game" equity ownership and are backed by a strong institutional and family office shareholder base.
The Macquarie Arc is a world-class gold-copper porphyry belt hosting an estimated >100Moz gold and >24Mt copper endowment1. It is Australia's foremost porphyry belt, serviced by favourable existing infrastructure and a clear Tier 1 jurisdiction. As summarised by Richard Schodde, a globally recognised minerals economist, "as an economic geologist … NSW, Lachlan Fold Belt, for copper and gold, is the place to be"2.
Notable flagship projects in this region include:
- the multiple deposits that form the Cadia gold-copper porphyry mine (Australia's largest gold mine and cornerstone asset for Newcrest Mining);
- the multiple deposits that form the Northparkes copper-gold porphyry mine (bought by China Molybdenum Co Ltd from Rio Tinto and recent focus of a US$550 million streaming transaction with Triple Flag);
- the Cowal epithermal gold deposits (the cornerstone mine for Evolution Mining); and,
- the Sunrise battery materials complex development project (flagship project of CleanTeQ).
Despite this region's long mining history and mineral endowment, there is still excellent potential for further globally significant discoveries and resource growth.
Alkane Resource's recent gold-copper discovery at its Boda porphyry project is testament to that (including 97 metres at 3.97g/t gold and 1.52% copper from 768 metres), as indeed was Kincora's first hole at our Trundle porphyry project (51 metres at 1.17g/t gold and 0.54% copper from only 39 metres). Brownfield exploration at Northparkes and Cowal has also significantly expanded resources and reserves, mine life and support ongoing expansion activities.
Within the region relatively limited exploration and deeper drilling has taken place. NSW as a State is the second largest gold producer in Australia, despite receiving only a tenth of the exploration expenditure of Western Australia3 and the renaissance in the Victorian goldfields.
There has been significant improvement in modern exploration techniques, new regional datasets and understanding of the mineral systems in the Lachlan Fold Belt, assisting us to capitalise on prior explorer activities and drilling, which often failed to recognize the nature of, and/or systematically test, the exploration target.
Within Kincora's portfolio we have four priority target areas that are being refocussed on from the old thinking, with a willingness to drill to the depths required to test our concepts (both shallow and deep).
- Trundle - the predominate high-grade copper-gold deposits in the Macquarie Arc and at Northparkes are pipe like, "finger" or "pencil" porphyries that are vertically extensive but horizontally discrete. Despite over 60,000 metres of prior explorer drilling, only 11 holes have previously been drilled to depths and in a manner that might test the potential for such a target at Trundle. This is not withstanding confirmed extensive near surface mineralisation across greater than a 10km2 strike and Trundle being within a brownfield environment to Northparkes. There has only been one prior explorer hole since a very favourable industry leading geophysical survey by HPX (CEO Robert Friedland) that generated 17 new anomalies and further supported vertically extensive porphyry targets extending to depth.
- Fairholme - despite being 10-20km on strike to the five structurally controlled gold deposits that comprised the Cowal mine (targeted mineral endowment of 15Moz gold4), few of the over 62,000 metres of prior exploring drilling has been focused on testing the potential for Fairholme to host near surface epithermal deposits, similar to that at Cowal. Instead prior explorer efforts and drilling has focused on trying to find a deeper "finger" or "pencil" porphyry(s). Since the last exploration at Fairholme resources have increased from 3.4Moz to 9Moz gold at Cowal, with its gold endowment far outshining the copper porphyry potential.
- Nyngan and Nevertire - despite these two projects being located in potentially the largest intrusive centre of the Macquarie Arc, and near favourable early stage explorer activities, Kincora was able to peg 1,144km2 of tenure over the most prospective undercover sections of the Arc. Since Kincora's entry there has been a considerable land grab by majors and juniors alike in this region.
Kincora's exploration concepts with the Nyngan/Nevertire region and proposed drilling plans have been rewarded by the NSW Government who recently awarded the Company a cooperative funding grant to financially assist drilling two copper-gold porphyry targets at our Nyngan project.
High priority drilling continues at our flagship Trundle project - situated in the same minerals complex as Northparkes (Australia's second largest porphyry mine). This is the only brownfield porphyry project held by a listed junior in the Macquarie Arc.
Kincora is advancing the understanding of near surface skarn system at Trundle, to understand the potential for a near term open pit development project. Work advancing the Company's earlier stage licenses and project pipeline across the belt (7 additional licenses) is now accelerating, including Nyngan and Fairholme.
The recent oversubscribed raise was the first step in achieving a listing on the Australian Securities Exchange ("ASX"), which we feel is the natural market given the focus of our exploration activities and location of the team.
In Mongolia, we have been the foremost foreign group pursuing counter-cyclical exploration and expansion opportunities, undertaking an aggressive modern systematic exploration approach, and undertaking new project generation. We have recently gained a mining license for a key portion of our large copper-gold porphyry discovery at the Bronze Fox project. We are reviewing ways to involve partners in taking Bronze Fox and the Mongolian portfolio forward.
In all aspects of the business, we retain our focus on operating safely with a special focus on being COVID-19-safe, and engaging with stakeholders.
Kincora's team is persistent and systematically working hard to confirm the next globally significant porphyry discovery and maximise significant value for our shareholders. We look forward to providing further progress updates.
Sincerely,
Sam Spring |
Cameron McRae |
President & CEO |
Chairman |
Kincora Copper Ltd. |
References
1 Bespoke Mar'20 request by Richard Schodde from MinEx Consulting for Kincora Copper. |
2 "The Assay" video interview Apri'20 with Richard Schodde and John Holliday - available at https://www.theassay.com/the-assay-tv/the-assay-tv-richard-schodde-john-holliday-kincora-copper/?dm_t=0,0,0,0,0 |
3 RIU Resurgence Conference, September 15th 2020, Dr Chris Yeats - Executive Director Geological Survey of NSW |
4 Evolution Mining Investor Webinar, September 2020 |
Available on the Kincora website: www.kincoracopper.com/about-us/corporate-strategy
QA/QC Procedures for drilling activities at the Trundle project
Sampling and QA/QC procedures are carried out by Kincora Copper Limited, and its contractors, using the Company's protocols as per industry best practise.
All samples have been assayed at ALS Minerals Laboratories, delivered to Orange, NSW, Australia. In addition to internal checks by AS, the Company incorporates a QA/QC sample protocol utilizing prepared standards and blanks for 5% of all assayed samples.
Diamond drilling was undertaken by DrillIt Consulting Pty Ltd, from Parkes, under the supervision of our field geologists. All drill core was logged to best industry standard by well-trained geologists and Kincora's drill core sampling protocol consisted a collection of samples over mineralized sections of the logged core.
Sample interval selection was based on geological controls or mineralization, and/or guidance from the Technical Committee provided subsequent to daily drill and logging reports. Sample intervals reflect geological boundaries, are cut by the Company and samples prepared in line with these geological boundaries, and delivered to ALS.
All reported assay results are performed by ALS and widths reported are drill core lengths. There is insufficient drilling data to date to demonstrate continuity of mineralised domains and determine the relationship between mineralization widths and intercept lengths, true widths are not known. The following assay techniques have been adopted:
- Gold: Au-AA24 (Fire assay), reported.
- Multiple elements: ME-ICP61 (4 acid digestion with ICP-AES analysis for 33 elements) and ME-MS61 (4 acid digestion with ICP-AES & ICP-MS analysis for 48 elements), the latter report for TRDD001 and former reported for holes TRDD002- TRDD005.
- Copper oxides and selected intervals with native copper: ME-ICP44 (Aqua regia digestion with ICP-AES analysis) has been assayed, but not reported.
- Assay results >10g/t gold and/or 1% copper are re-assayed.
Qualified Person
The scientific and technical information in this news release was prepared in accordance with the standards of the Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy and Petroleum and National Instrument 43-101 – Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects ("NI 43-101") and was reviewed, verified and compiled by Kincora's geological staff under the supervision of Peter Leaman (M.Sc. Mineral Exploration, FAusIMM), Senior Vice-President of Exploration of Kincora, and John Holliday (BSc Hons, BEc, member of the Australian Institute of Geoscientists), Non-Executive Director and Technical Committee Chairman, who are the Qualified Persons for the purpose of NI 43-101.
The review and verification process for the information disclosed herein for the Trundle project has included the receipt of all material exploration data, results and sampling procedures of previous operators and review of such information by Kincora's geological staff using standard verification procedures.
About Kincora Copper Limited
(KCC – TSXV)
Kincora is an active junior and systematic explorer seeking to make a major discovery in Mongolia, the Lachlan Fold Belt in Australia and other prospective complementary jurisdictions.
Our technical team is credited with multiple discoveries of Tier 1 copper assets. In 3Q'19, Kincora made the strategic decision to opportunistically pursue entry into the Macquarie Arc, in Central West of NSW. This is Australia's foremost porphyry belt, home to the giant Cadia, Northparkes mines and recent Boda discovery by Alkane Resources.
The Macquarie Arc is synergistic in line with Kincora's core focus. It offers: the same scale of target (world-class); the same commodity mix (copper-gold or gold-copper); the same mineralized setting (porphyry and/or epithermal gold); supports a similar systematic exploration approach/exploration methods; and, is a region where the team has had significant exploration success.
Forward-Looking Statements
Certain information regarding Kincora contained herein may constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of applicable securities laws. Forward-looking statements may include estimates, plans, expectations, opinions, forecasts, projections, guidance or other statements that are not statements of fact. Although Kincora believes that the expectations reflected in such forward-looking statements are reasonable, it can give no assurance that such expectations will prove to have been correct. Kincora cautions that actual performance will be affected by a number of factors, most of which are beyond its control, and that future events and results may vary substantially from what Kincora currently foresees. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in forward-looking statements include market prices, exploitation and exploration results, continued availability of capital and financing and general economic, market or business conditions. The forward-looking statements are expressly qualified in their entirety by this cautionary statement. The information contained herein is stated as of the current date and is subject to change after that date. Kincora does not assume the obligation to revise or update these forward-looking statements, except as may be required under applicable securities laws.
Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.
SOURCE Kincora Copper Limited
Sam Spring, President and Chief Executive Officer, [email protected] or +61431 329 345
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