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The Theseus Project is located 25km east of the operating Cowal Gold Mine
in the southern Macquarie Arc of the Lachlan Fold Belt, NSW

THE THESEUS
COPPER GOLD
PROJECT

Image of the Cowal Gold Mine
(Evolution Mining)

Overview

The new combined Theseus Project covers a total of 944km2 comprised of a 100% owned Copper Search ELA 6903 (489km2) and Rimfire’s “Cowal Project” tenements (455km2) EL8329, EL8804 and EL9397.

Located 320 km west of Sydney, in western New South Wales, the project is situated within the Lachlan Fold Belt, which encompasses the Macquarie Arc. The Macquarie Arc is Australia’s leading porphyry copper-gold province and is home to several world-class mines, including Newcrest Mining’s Cadia mine, as well as Evolution Mining’s Northparkes and Cowal gold mines.

I’m pleased to share with investors the next step in expanding our pipeline of drill targets across the Lachlan Fold Belt in New South Wales - the addition of the Theseus Gold and Copper Project.

Copper Search has been actively assessing opportunities in the district because it meets several of our key selection criteria: a strong mining jurisdiction, proximity to operating mines, and demonstrated economic scale potential.

Historical drilling confirmed the project's prospectivity, particularly around the Porters Mount Prospect, where there is clear evidence of gold-bearing epithermal mineralisation and associated textures. So, when the opportunity to acquire this ground arose, we moved quickly to secure it.
Duncan Chessell
Managing Director

The Deal Terms

Copper Search, through its wholly owned subsidiary, Altitude Gold Pty Ltd (Altitude), has entered into a binding agreement granting CUS an exclusive option to purchase the Cowal Project from Rimfire Pacific Mining Limited (ASX: RIM).

Under the terms of the Agreement, Copper Search will pay $50,000 in cash to secure an exclusive 6-month option to assess the Rimfire Pacific Cowal Project within ten (10) business days of the waiver of Sandfire Resources‘ Right of First Refusal (ROFR) over one of the Cowal Project tenements – EL8329 (75km2). Sandfire has 30 business days to make an election to exercise its ROFR. NSW granted Tenements included are EL8329, EL8804 and EL9397 (total 455km2). 

During the exclusive option period, CUS intends on a best endeavours basis to complete relogging of drill core and investigate mineral geochemistry studies to determine fertility and potential vectors to mineralisation using innovative trace element analysis developed by the Centre for Ore Deposit Exploration Studies (CODES), University of Tasmania. CUS also intends to compile and re-analyse all previous exploration data in detail using the latest mineralisation models and new technology innovations available.

Purchase

  • At CUS’s call, during the exclusive 6-month option period, CUS may purchase the project outright for $200,000 in cash or, at CUS’s election, up to 50% shares.
  • The option period may be extended by a maximum of 3 months by paying a cash consideration of $10,000 per month of extension.
Read The Full Details

Prospectivity

Crucially, the project is in the well-endowed Junee – Narromine Volcanic Belt (JNVB) of the Ordovician to Early Silurian Age Macquarie Arc. Evolution’s Cowal Operations with 8.9Moz gold in resource and North Parkes Operation with resources of 2.6Moz gold and 2.3Mt copper, exploit the same JNVB geological formation. While younger sequences overlying most of the target formation, much of the heavy lifting to obtain basement samples has been done with over 31,000m of drilling data collected since 1970, to build our geological model. Our geology team will conduct a gap analysis of historical works, apply modern mineral geochemistry to determine fertility to A/ inform a decision to purchase outright and B/ on the positive decision to purchase; plan next steps to validate with geophysics or air core drilling to build a priority list of drill targets.

Previous explorers have identified multiple prospects – Porters Mount and LFB022 as two examples. However multiple other historical results and new magnetics and gravity data leave the exploration space not fully tested.
Rimfire proposed a drill program for the LFB022 Prospect but did not commence the program due to success elsewhere. LFB022 is a 1.5 x 3.5km area of anomalous in copper mineralisation from air core drilling – maximum of 1,320ppm Cu (Hole ID CBAC022), see Figure 3 and Figure 5. The project is prospective for copper-porphyry style mineralisation.

The Porters Mount Prospect has both shallow air core drill testing and a deep diamond core drill hole (ID: PMD001) to 890m. The deeper hole intersected typical epi-thermal textures and gold, silver, and arsenic mineralisation, demonstrating the fertility of the prospect (see Figure 2). This identification of epi-thermal mineralisation at depth leaves a large untested zone of the project between positive results from shallow air core drilling and high-grade mineralisation at depth, for high-grade gold vein mineralisation.

Porters Mount shallow drilling highlights include:
• 20m @ 0.73 g/t Au from 6m, Hole ID TARRA61
• 36m @ 0.43 g/t Au from 48m, Hole ID TARD84
• 26m @ 0.35 g/t Au from 22m, Hole ID TARD86
• 2m @ 1.76 g/t Au from 20m, Hole ID TARP81
• 2m @ 2.75 g/t Au from 76m, Hole ID TARRA45

Porters Mount deep drilling highlights include:
• 78m @ 0.37 g/t Au and 0.5% As from 740m, Hole ID PMD001
o Including 1m @ 0.63 g/t Au and 7% Arsenic from 703m

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