PERTH (miningweekly.com) – Mining major Rio Tinto’s subsidiary Kennecott is poised to start exploration work at ASX-listed Alderan Resources’ Frisco copper/gold/silver project, in Utah.
Kennecott will spend an initial $6-million on exploration at the project area to gain a 55% interest in the project, with the company able to earn a 70% interest by completing a three-stage, $30-million exploration earn-in.
Alderan said on Wednesday that during the March quarter, Kennecott conducted field visits to assess ground conditions and determine logistics and safety requirements to support an initial drill programme, spending several weeks reviewing selected drill holes to understand the geology and plan an initial diamond drill programme to follow up high-grade intersections at the Cactus Breccia and Accrington Skarn targets, as well as deeper hole testing the reciprocity induced polarization anomaly.
Kennecott has now started an initial four-hole 2 000 m drill programme to test targets.