In parallel with the RC drilling campaign, the company has also completed a resampling program of roughly 1000m of historic diamond core drilled in 2006, which displays strong copper mineralisation.
Historic drilling at Carmen by the previous lease owners – Canadian junior miner IPBX – reported standout hits of 41m grading 2.46 per cent copper from surface, another surface intercept of 39m running 1.48 per cent copper, and an additional 27.5m hit returning 1.12 per cent copper from only 1.5m downhole.
Norfolk says the resource remains open in all directions and, notably, does not include some of these earlier stellar hits, which were never incorporated into the original resource.
Assays from the final six RC holes and the diamond core resampling program are expected early in the New Year.
The latest results will then feed into an updated JORC-compliant mineral resource estimate, slated for next year.
Norfolk Metals’ executive chairman Ben Phillips said: “These initial results from the Maiden Drill Campaign at Carmen confirm the highly prospective nature of this project in conjunction with the shallow mineralisation. We have some very strong results validating the copper oxide zone within the historical resource area while also showing significant grade tenor and continuity in sulphides, which are starting as shallow as 50m from beneath the oxide surface blanket.”
Norfolk lays claim to 22 contiguous exploration licenses covering a 46 square kilometre patch of the prospective 8.5-kilometre-long Carmen-Tabaco Belt. The belt sits in the Atacama’s copper-rich Huasco Province – home to some of the planet’s biggest porphyry copper mines.
Carmen sits just 16.5km from Newmont and Teck’s massive Relincho–Fortuna joint venture development – a copper-gold behemoth boasting 16.6 billion pounds of copper, 8.9 million ounces of gold and 464 million pounds of molybdenum.
Copper has staged a strong rebound of late, climbing to US$11,771 (A$17,694) a tonne this week as mounting supply-shortage warnings push prices toward record highs. It’s a timely backdrop for Norfolk as it accelerates exploration across its prospective patch in one of Chile’s most lucrative copper-rich provinces.
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