Antipa Minerals is piecing its Paterson Province ground back together in the midst of a gold rush
Antipa has consolidated its gold tenure in the Paterson province around the 2.3Moz Minyari Dome project after IGO pulled out of a joint venture.
Antipa Minerals retains 100% ownership of Paterson Project after IGO leaves farm-in
Move consolidates Paterson Province tenement package – including 2.3Moz Minyari Dome – to 4060km2
Planning underway for multiple drill programs this quarter to test gold-dominant priority targets close to Minyari Dome
Special Report: Antipa Minerals has reclaimed full control of the 1,520km2 Paterson Project which fully surrounds its 2.3Moz Minyari Dome deposit in WA’s red hot Paterson region.
It follows IGO’s (ASX:IGO) decision to pull out of the farm-in agreement it entered into with the junior in July 2020.
While the decision precludes further investment from the larger miner, Antipa Minerals (ASX:AZY) is taking it as an opportunity to consolidate its holdings in the Paterson into a hefty belt-scale 4,060km2 package.
The Company will also benefit from the $15m worth of investment that IGO already dropped on copper-focused exploration.
Notably, Antipa is taking a different view on the Project’s prospectivity, focusing instead on its potential to host gold-dominant deposits with multiple greenfield targets already primed for follow-up or initial drilling.
Like the Company, punters appeared to be unfazed by the move with shares rising ~5% to 41c following a brief dip earlier on Wednesday.
Regional opportunity
As IGO focuses on core priorities during a lithium down-cycle like its Greenbushes mine, Antipa will be able to capitalise on a strong gold market by consolidating its massive and highly prospective Paterson ground.
“Antipa’s foresight in recognising the regional opportunity within the Paterson, combined with our early-mover actions, has delivered a significant advantage that is beginning to reveal itself,” managing director Roger Mason said.
Mason said the reversion to full control had the twin benefits of strengthening the standalone development scenario for Minyari Dome and to renew its focus on the gold dominant opportunities ignored as IGO hunted for copper.
“The consolidation of the Paterson Province continues, and we are set to play a major role in its future,” he added.
AZY noted that late 2024 air core drilling by the farm-in venture at the AL05 surface geochemical target had extended the GEO-01 and Rizzo gold mineralisation 400m southwest and 100m southeast respectively.
It expects additional project-scale interpretation and data modelling to produce further targets on top of the existing cache of targets and prosects.
The Paterson Project is highly prospective for metasediment and mafic intrusive hosted gold and/or copper deposits with the Company noting that IGO had avoided or deprioritised existing gold dominant prospects, surface geochemical and air core anomalies, and greenfield targets – most of which are proximal to Minyari Dome.
These include the Serrano-Poblano-Reaper targets about 35km north of Minyari Dome.
Limited broad-spaced drilling carried out by the Company in 2019 defined a 1.8km long, up to 500-metre-wide corridor of gold-copper-silver mineralisation, which remains open in most directions.
Notable assays include a 4m at 8.1g/t gold and 0.23% copper intersection from 194m in hole 19EPC0020.
Systematic drilling in the works
AZY believes that systemic air core and reverse circulation drilling will be required to evaluate the potential of this corridor.
Other targets include the large AL01 target about 17km north of Minyari Dome which was identified by air core drilling completed by IGO, the PP-GRAV02 gold-copper target about 10km west-southwest and the PP-GRAV01 gold-copper target that’s 25km to the north.
Planning for a 2025 exploration drilling program is well advanced and will focus on priority targets proximal to Minyari, including extensions to both GEO-01 and Rizzo, plus PP-GRAV02 and AL01.
This article was developed in collaboration with Antipa Minerals, a Stockhead advertiser at the time of publishing.
This article does not constitute financial product advice. You should consider obtaining independent advice before making any financial decisions.
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