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Castillo Copper looks to restart production at the Cangai Copper Mine

Published: 13:38 08 Mar 2018 AEDT

Copper on the periodic table
Copper is trading close to its 5-year highs after bouncing from its 2016 low

Castillo Copper Ltd (ASX:CCZ) is focused on fast-tracking the Cangai Copper Mine located in New South Wales back into production.

The Jackaderry Project hosts the historical Cangai Copper Mine, which has a JORC Inferred Resource of 3.2 million tonnes at 3.35% copper, one of Australia’s highest grade copper resources.

After delineating Cangai’s JORC resource using historical exploration data recently in September 2017, Castillo sees good potential for resource expansion in its maiden drilling program.

Project portfolio focused on copper, cobalt, zinc and nickel

Castillo is a base metal explorer primarily focused on copper, cobalt, zinc and nickel with the bulk of its core operating assets in eastern Australia.

Its project portfolio includes:

• Jackaderry Project (100%, New South Wales): 3 prospects including the Cangai Copper Mine;
• Broken Hill Project (100%, New South Wales): 2 prospects;
• Mt Oxide Project (100%, Queensland): 4 prospects;
• Marlborough Project (under application, Queensland): 3 prospects; and
• Chilean Projects (100%).

Drilling clearly reveals the resources upside potential

Castillo delineated Cangai’s JORC resource using historical exploration data recently in September 2017.

The maiden drilling program targeted resource expansion.

Drilling logs confirmed that 7 out of 8.5 drill-holes intersected sulphide mineralisation.

The best intersection was 30 metres thick and came from an untested area between two known JORC modelled lodes.

READ: Castillo Copper backs up January results with further drilling success

The drilling program confirmed the current JORC model and clearly revealed the upside potential of the resource.

Early cash flow opportunity through old high-grade stockpiles

XRF analysis confirmed high-grade copper mineralisation apparent in five historical stockpiles, showing up to 30% grades which is consistent with legacy assays.

The high-grade ore stockpile areas are early potential targets for cash flow generation, if mining operations re-commence.

Furthermore, the Cangai Copper Mine’s high-grade supergene ore is able to be shipped to Asian customers, by trucking the ore to Grafton nearby to access the railway network.

Zinc and cobalt targets at Broken Hill Project

During September, evidence of surface mineralisation for zinc and cobalt was uncovered as part of the desktop review process at the Broken Hill Project.

Just outside the western boundary but striking into the project area, surface mineralisation grading up to 3,000 ppm cobalt was been found.

Within the same anomalous zone, legacy drill-holes had intersections that contained 7,000 ppm cobalt.

The review has also uncovered multiple legacy drill holes with grades of up to 3% zinc.

Given the prices of zinc and cobalt are also very strong, generating drill targets within the Broken Hill Project will follow the Cangai drilling campaign.

New chairman in February with valuable experience

Castillo appointed Peter Meagher as chairman, a highly experienced executive in the mining industry.

With over 30 years of experience in managing projects at all levels, his expertise in progressing an emerging company such as Castillo should be valuable.

Meagher’s past experience includes a period as chairman of Extract Resources (ASX:EXT) where he was instrumental in growing Extract’s projects.

These were eventually acquired by China Guangdong Nuclear Power Group through a takeover which valued Extract at over A$2.1 billion in 2012.

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