Southern Hemisphere to hammer twin Chilean copper targets

Southern Hemisphere Mining has revealed details for an upcoming drill program early next month as it aims to expand the mineral resource with higher-grade tonnes at its flagship Llahuin copper-gold-molybdenum project that sits some 350km north of Santiago in Chile.

The company has today confirmed that it has signed a contract for a 5000m campaign of reverse-circulation (RC) and diamond drilling at the project, with a key focus of the program to target its Cerro-Ferro deposit and Curiosity target that sits within its Southern Porphyry prospect.

Management says it is aiming to add scale to its copper resource that consists of 169 million tonnes grading 0.4 per cent copper-equivalent for 680,000 tonnes of copper-equivalent material, to establish economic parameters for mining studies at the project.

The drilling program is designed to outline the deeper zones of the Cerro-Ferro porphyry deposit that has more than a 2km strike length. One hole was drilled to 644m in 2013 and plans have now been made to extend the depth to 1200m as it lines up with a prospective target zone north of Cerro, enabling lower-cost testing at depth.

The new Cerro-Ferro target begins near the surface, both outside and below the current resource, to a depth of about 500m. With further depth extending to 1250m, a much bigger target will form with the footprint extending 2200m north-to-south and some 900m east-to-west, featuring a thickness of 650m.

Initial RC drilling will focus on near-surface mineralisation unearthed last year with a hit of 48m at 0.48 per cent copper-equivalent. It is a new, previously-undrilled section of ground that lies south of Ferro and is part of the southern soil anomaly in the area.

Management believes it presents a prime opportunity to bolster the resource with near-surface tonnes, potentially returning higher grades.

We have been working on the project for three years now and we’ve been gaining a better understanding geologically, along with building the confidence to drill deeper holes to turn this into a major project.

The Curiosity copper-gold prospect will be targeted with possible deep diamond-holes after initial RC pre-collar drilling once the company’s studies to define optimal target depths is completed.

Management says Curiosity sits 550m below the Santa Maria gold workings and is about 1km in diameter, with a depth of 2km where the diameter of the target increases to 2km.

A previous 409 rock-chip and pulp sampling program at Curiosity across a 200m grid-spacing, in addition to testing of epithermal vein crops, returned samples assaying up to 0.69 per cent copper, 7.38 grams per tonne gold, 8.3g/t silver and 459 parts per million molybdenum.

Management believes the addition of precious-metal mineralisation combined with possible molybdenum supports the bulk-scale potential of the copper target at Curiosity. It expects first assay results from the program in mid-November.

Southern Hemisphere previously used high-tech 3D modelling to discover the two new compelling targets at Llahuin. It engaged Fathom Geophysics to apply its proprietary 3D porphyry footprint modelling method to map a potential deposit zone.

Based on a known geochemical method, it involves the use of 11 different mineral elements to return the probability of the presence of a porphyry system at a given point in 3D space.

Surface soil samples were used instead of rock chips to create a 3D model outcome, providing the company with better geographical coverage and analytical information. 3D inversion model drone magnetics were then completed to complement the geochemical modelling.

Southern Hemisphere says magnetic inversion modelling and geochemical results complemented each other, with highly magnetic bodies adjacent to the geochemical footprint models.

The company’s plan to bulk-up its Llahuin resource at a time of expected rising demand for copper in the coming decades may be a smart move if the global transition to cleaner energy continues.

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