They are also open to potentially teaming up with other local explorers and developers if they can bring further benefits to the partnership table.
Tennant, Emmerson and CuFe have all made recent high-grade discoveries that provide compelling opportunities to leverage their success with the other alliance members, particularly given the independent development of even modest-sized deposits has become significantly harder due to modern-day environmental, regulatory and financial hurdles.
CuFe is a 55 per cent stakeholder and operator of the region’s Orlando-Gecko and Goanna copper-gold projects.
Tennant recently had some eye-popping discoveries at its Bluebird prospect within its Barkly project, with a best 61.8-metre hit at 2.3 per cent copper and 0.4 grams per tonne (g/t) gold and a 63m section going 2.1 per cent copper and 4.6g/t gold.
Management believes Bluebird has similar potential to other high-grade deposits discovered at Tennant Creek, such as the historically significant Warrego deposit’s 6.75 million tonnes at 6.6g/t gold and 1.9 per cent copper and ASX-listed Elmore Limited’s Peko 3.7mt deposit going 4 per cent copper and 3.5g/t gold.
Emmerson revealed in January its impressive maiden mineral resource for the company’s White Devil deposit it has in a joint venture with Pan African Resources subsidiary TCMG.
The company raised a few eyebrows when it unveiled a 3.63mt maiden resource grading 4.2g/t gold for a stellar 489,900 ounces of gold.
Emmerson has previously revealed astonishing hits 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.
Emmerson also has an existing carbon-in-leach gold-only facility being constructed in the area by its joint venture partner TCMG, however, a proposed facility by the group alliance would be wider-reaching and include processing of copper and critical minerals.
With the recent surge in gold and copper prices, which has seen gold surpass US$3000 (A$4766) per ounce and copper up to US$5.07 (A$8.06) per pound, a serious look at how best to develop a processing facility in the Tennant Creek region appears to make sense.
The area is starved of gold and copper mills causing project deposits to become “stranded assets”, so an ability to process the mineralisation nearby could provide a big boost to worthy projects and provide a welcome boost in regional employment opportunities.
The Territory’s mines minister has written supporting the scheme and its potential to deliver economic benefits to the region.
Historically, the Tennant Creek mineral field had several high-grade mines feeding centralised processing facilities. The alliance’s scoping study will take a giant step towards answering whether that familiar scenario is the best way forward in today’s at-times difficult and costly mining environment.
Is your ASX-listed company doing something interesting? Contact: mattbirney@bullsnbears.com.au
