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 ASX; GUN
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Company Statement
Gunson Resources Limited was formed in 2000 to explore for and develop mineral deposits in Australia. It is currently searching for mineral sands, copper-gold-uranium and nickel sulphides in Western Australia, South Australia and the Northern Territory (Figure 1).
The Company’s most advanced property is the Coburn zircon project in Western Australia, discovered by Gunson in 2000. Coburn has government permits for mining, a near-complete definitive feasibility study and subject to financing by late 2009, the Company plans to bring the 20 year Coburn mine into production in late 2010 to produce 2.5% of the world’s zircon, 3.5% of the world’s chloride ilmenite and 7.5% of the world’s HiTi (85% Ti02).
Company Diagram
Current Operations
Coburn Zircon Project
- Drilling since 2000 has outlined a major heavy mineral sand deposit known as Amy Zone (Figure 2) which is over 35 kilometres long, up to 3 kilometres wide and between 10-50 metres thick.
- Gunson completed a bankable feasibility study in December 2004 showing that Amy Zone can support a high volume, low cost, long life mining operation producing quality mineral products. It is currently the world's third largest greenfields zircon development project.
- Mine development cannot proceed until financing has been completed. Gunson's strategy is to attract offtake investors that would take up a combined minority contributing equity in the Project.
- In May 2006, the Western Australian Environment Minister granted approval for the proposed mine, subject to EPA approval of 15 environmental management plans. Approval of all but one of these plans, now consolidated to 10 was granted in March 2007. Approval of the remaining plan, a Groundwater Mounding Management Plan, is required prior to the commencement of commercial production.
- In the meantime, a definitive feasibility study is nearing completion, timed for public release when the final Project construction cost is negotiated with Sedgman Metals - Intermet Engineering, the preferred contractor selected from the 3 tenderers that submitted construction proposals on 1st May 2009.
- Sedgman Metals are currently carrying out a Design Definition Study to reduce the capital and operating costs of the Project, due for completion in October 2009.
- Financing of the proposed mine development is being discussed with potential offtake investors in the Middle East and China.
- Strategic location in the best endowed copper belt in Australia, the Olympic Copper-Gold Province. This belt is over 500 km long and contains about 75% of the known copper resources in Australia. Olympic Dam lies about 100 km north of Mount Gunson and is the fourth largest copper and largest uranium deposit in the world, containing some 42% of global uranium resources. Two discoveries since 2000 at Prominent Hill, approximately 100 kms north west of Olympic Dam and Carrapateena, 20 kms east of Gunson's Chianti Prospect, have heightened exploration interest in this belt.
- In late 2005, the first of a 2 hole drilling program at Chianti Prospect intersected very encouraging copper mineralisation in basement hematite-rich granite breccias, including 2 metres at 3.4% from 549 m.
- In mid 2006, the Company announced an agreement with Noranda Pacific Pty Ltd (Noranda), giving Noranda the right to earn 75% of the Project by spending $10M in 6 years. Noranda was taken over by Xstrata plc in late 2006 and is now part of the Xstrata Copper business unit. Exploration funded by Noranda is continuing with Noranda having spent $2.2M to the end of March 2009.
- Noranda is currently funding a deep drilling program to test gravity targets in the Emmie Bluff area, which commenced in late June 2009. Emmie Bluff is the second largest occurrence of iron oxide mineralisation in the Olympic Copper-Gold Province and wide spaced drilling by Mount Isa Mines Ltd in the 1980s interesected sub-economic copper-gold mineralisation associated with these iron oxides.
- In addition to the large iron oxide associated copper-gold-uranium deposits in basement rocks, such as Olympic Dam, Prominent Hill and Carrapateena, the Mount Gunson area is also prospective for shallow copper deposits in the cover sequence. Gunson has title to 44 million tonnes of resources of this mineralisation style, averaging 1.2% copper.
- In April 2008, the Company announced the commencement of a feasibility study on the shallowest of these resources: the MG 14 deposit. It contains a JORC compliant Indicated Resource of 1.1 million tonnes grading 1.7%, containing 18,700 tonnes of copper about 25 metres below the surface. A metallurgical drilling program was completed in July 2008 and testwork on the drill samples is nearing completion.
- This project comprises two approved exploration licences and three exploration licence applications over a combined area of 107 square km in the Tennant Creek district, as a result of geological targeting work conducted on BHP Billiton’s extensive Australian database by the Company’s geological consultant, Douglas Haynes Discovery Pty Ltd.
- The Tennant Creek district has yielded some 5 million ounces of gold and 350,000 tonnes of copper since large scale mining began in 1934. Gold-copper ore bodies in the district are typically high grade averaging 9 g/t gold and 2.1% copper, and are associated with distinctive magnetic anomalies, due to the abundance of the magnetic iron oxide, magnetite.
- Significantly less exploration has been conducted in the district for non-magnetic gold-copper ore bodies. Such ore bodies are predicted to occur in the Tennant Creek district, but will not have the usual geophysical characteristics of the known gold-copper deposits. They will be associated with discrete gravity anomalies, with either a very weak coincident or adjacent magnetic anomaly, like Oz Minerals' Prominent Hill and BHP Billiton's Olympic Dam deposits in South Australia.
- Gunson’s tenements and tenement applications cover weak magnetic anomalies with associated gravity responses in favourable geological settings, where little or no previous exploration has been carried out. The targets on these areas can be tested quickly and cheaply with ground geophysics and shallow geochemical drilling.
- A drilling program on one of the two approved exploration licences is scheduled for mid 2009, to test a 2km long gravity anomaly defined in April 2009.
- The other three exploration licence applications lie on aboriginal freehold land and no agreement has been reached for exploration access. This is due to a difference of opinion on uranium mining - the Company's position is that it must be allowed because of the occurrence of by product uranium in deposits such as Olympic Dam.
- This grass roots nickel sulphide exploration project was initiated in 2005 and comprises a single 130 square kilometre exploration licence about 450 kilometres east of Kalgoorlie, some 70 kilometres north of the transcontinental railway.
- The exploration target is in strongly magnetic Proterozoic basement, beneath a thin veneer of flat lying sedimentary rocks of the Eucla Basin, defined geophysically as less than 200 metres thick. Around the Company's nickel sulphide targets, the Eucla Basin cover is considered to be less 120 metres thick.
- A detailed aeromagnetic survey flown in December 2007 helped Gunson to define 3 drill targets, interpreted to be good host rocks for nickel sulphide deposits.
- Field inspection of these targets in April 2008 showed that all were in flat lying terrain with almost no shrubs or trees. Drill access is considered to be good.
- There has been no previous mineral exploration drilling on the Project exploration licence and a first pass drill program is scheduled for mid 2009.
- Application for a 50% State Government drilling subsidy was made in May 2009 and a decision on this application is expected in July 2009.
- Fowler’s Bay comprises a 700 square kilometre exploration licence located about 150 kilometres west of Ceduna.
- The exploration target is craton margin Proterozoic nickel sulphide deposits within a northerly trending belt of magnetic anomalies near the western margin of the Gawler Craton.
- Interpretation of the results of an airborne transient electromagnetic (TEM) geophysical survey in the northern part of the Project flown by a neighboring tenement holder in 2007 revealed 2 promising nickel sulphide targets.
- These targets, which comprise 2 bedrock TEM geophysical conductors up to a kilometre long, are located in a prominent regional bend in the belt of magnetic anomalies described above.
- The magnetic anomalies are interpreted to be Proterozoic mafic and ultramafic rocks prospective for nickel sulphides. Evidence for this comes from widely scattered drill holes completed by previous explorers which penetrated to basement.
- The two airborne TEM anomalies appear to occur either side of a basement high expressed by a hill and both have an estimated depth to top of 100 metres or less.
- Ground TEM surveys to better define the two anomalies for possible drill testing were completed in December 2008 and April 2009 respectively. These surveys defined an attractive drill target and application to carry out the drilling program was made to government regulators in June 2009. Approval is expected in September 2009.
Geographical Spread
Western Australia, South Australia and the Northern Territory.
Board of Directors and Key Management
| Mr William H Cunningham | (Chairman, Director) |
| Mr David N Harley | (Managing Director, Director) |
| Mr Peter C Harley | (Director) |
Company AddressLevel 2
|
Additional Address/Key ContactPO Box 1217 West Perth |
Capital138 million fully paid ordinary shares |
Annual General MeetingNovember | Year EndJune 30 |
Related News
07/01/10 - Gunson Is Going Great Guns With Its Copper And Zircon Projects28/05/09 - Gunson Finds China Is A Tricky Place To Do Business, And Turns Instead To The UAE For A Partner In The Zircon Business
01/09/08 - Gunson Benefits From Delayed Approvals As The Zircon Price Soars
07/11/07 - Gunson Has More Than One String To Its Bow
Most Recent Statement
27/10/09 - Quarterly Report and Appendix 5B26/10/09 - ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING
12/10/09 - Mount Gunson Copper Project - Preliminary Feasibility Study Results - MG 14
29/09/09 - Significant Down-Hole Geophysical Results at Emmie Bluff, Mount Gunson Copper Project
22/09/09 - BURKIN NICKEL PROJECT COMPLETION OF DRILLING PROGRAM
24/08/09 - Copper Mineralisation in 2009 Mount Gunson Drilling