New World Resources reports first resource for Antler project in Arizona

Australia’s New World Resources (ASX: NWC) has wasted little time since signing an option agreement in January 2020 to earn 100% of the Antler copper project in northwestern Arizona. The Perth-based exploration and development company started drilling the project in March last year and released its first resource estimate in mid-November.

The past-producing deposit, which outcrops over more than 750 metres of surface about 30 km south of Kingman in Mohave County, has a JORC-compliant resource of 5.73 million indicated tonnes grading 2.15% copper, 5.31% zinc, 0.86% lead, 31.55 grams silver per tonne and 0.22 gram gold per tonne (3.9% copper-equivalent) at a cut-off grade of 1% copper-equivalent. At a copper-equivalent cut-off grade of 2%, Antler’s indicated resource measures 5.08 million tonnes grading 2.32% copper, 5.74% zinc, 0.88% lead, 32.60 grams silver per tonne and 0.23 gram gold per tonne (4.1% copper equivalent).

Those numbers make Antler “the highest grade undeveloped copper project on the ASX and second to Sandfire’s DeGrussa for any copper deposit (operational or other),” Paul Howard, an Australian mining analyst who follows New World Resources at Canaccord Genuity, commented in a research note to clients. “We have assessed 830 global copper deposits (copper as the primary mineral) and normalized them on an in-situ, non-recovered copper equivalent basis. Antler falls within the top 30 global deposits in terms of copper-equivalent grade and in the top 20 in terms of overall size (contained copper-equivalent percent tonnes) of global deposits whose grade is greater than 3% copper-equivalent.”

Seventy-four percent of Antler’s resource estimate is classified in the indicated category. Inferred resources at the 1% copper-equivalent cut-off grade add 1.99 million tonnes grading 2.47% copper, 5.35% zinc, 1.01% lead, 28.87 grams silver per tonne and 0.08 gram gold per tonne (4.1% copper equivalent). At a 2% copper-equivalent cut-off grade, inferred resources stand at 1.64 million tonnes 2.77% copper, 6.20% zinc, 1.02% lead, 21.02 grams silver and 1.10 gram gold (4.6% copper equivalent).

The resource estimate was based on 201 drillholes (40,264 metres) and 82 level samples, of which 124 drillholes (10,653 metres) was completed between 1947 and 1975, and 77 drillholes (29,611 metres) were completed by New World Resources. The mineralization remains open at depth along the entire 500 metre of strike that has been drilled to date and to the south, where the company says “strong undrilled geophysical anomalies are high-priority targets for resource expansion drilling.”

Three drill rigs are turning at site and assays are pending for 12 additional drill holes that weren’t incorporated into the resource.

“We are confident we have a very sizeable and robust resource that is likely to underpin development of a high-grade mining operation that should have a long and  profitable life, regardless of metal prices,” Mike Haynes, the company’s managing director, stated in a press release. “But we also see that there’s a lot more mineralization to be discovered at Antler.”

The company notes that over the next nine to twelve months, it will try to expand the resource estimate to between 10 and 12 million tonnes at copper-equivalent grades of between three and four percent.

In addition, management says it will use the resource estimate for initial mining studies that are required to prepare applications for mine permits.

According to the company, Antler is a stratabound, pyrrhotite-rich, copper-zinc volcanogenic massive sulphide (VMS) body, and it notes that there are a number of other VMS deposits in similarly aged rocks in northern Arizona.

Although still early days, New World anticipates Antler will be an underground mine using long-hole open stope mining methods.

Metallurgical testwork continues, and the company says it expects recoveries of about 87.2% for copper; 88.9% for zinc; 59.1% for lead; 50.3% for silver and 70% for gold.

Canaccord Genuity’s Howard estimated if put into production, Antler would be a 1 million tonne per year operation producing 35,000 tonnes of copper-equivalent a year over six years. He estimated capex of about US$160 million “to build a small footprint underground and flotation plant.”

“New World Resources can now progress permit applications for Antler, a process that could take up to two years in the U.S., but we note that this project is on private land in a remote part of Arizona, which makes permitting easier, in our view.”

The analyst has a speculative buy rating and a target price of A30¢ (27¢) per share. At presstime the company was trading at A7¢ per share within a 52-week trading range of 4¢ and 12¢. The junior has a market cap of about A$122 million ($111.2 million).

The deposit was discovered in the late 1800s and intermitten production between 1916 and 1970 totalled about 70,000 tonnes of mineralized material grading 2.9% copper, 6.9% zinc, 1.1% lead, 31 grams silver per tonne and 0.3 gram gold, the company says. Ore was extracted over about 200 metres of strike from an inclined shaft to a depth of about 150 metres.