REG - Metals Exploration - Abra Tenement Exploration Project Update

Metals ExplorationAnnouncement

28/10/2024 07:00

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RNS Number : 7669J  Metals Exploration PLC  28 October 2024

28 October 2024

 

METALS EXPLORATION PLC

("Metals Exploration", the "Group" or the "Company")

Abra Tenement Exploration Project Update

Appointment of VP Exploration

Metals Exploration, a gold producer in the Philippines, is pleased to announce
that it has received final approval from Philippine authorities for the
commencement of exploration drilling activities in the Abra tenements, held by
the Group's subsidiary, Yamang Mineral Corporation ("YMC"), and that a
drill-ready target has been defined.

The Company is also pleased to announce the appointment of Max Tuesley as the
new Vice-President of Exploration.

Highlights

 ●    The Company has completed pre-exploration activities of the Abra tenement
      area, including geochemical soil analysis, mapping and airborne geophysics.
 ●    The Manikbel prospect at the southern end of the Abra tenement is now
      drill-ready with all approvals in place.
 ●    Operator training has been completed and the Company's diamond drill rig has
      been mobilised to the Manikbel prospect.
 ●    Drilling should commence within the next three weeks once the drill pads and
      other pre-drilling activities are completed.
 ●    A second diamond drill rig has also been prepared and is ready to mobilise
      subject to confirmation of mineralisation and a decision to extend the drill
      programme.
 ●    The Company is planning four initial drill holes with the aim to complete this
      drilling programme before the year-end.
 ●    The objective of the drill programme, beyond the identification of
      mineralisation, is to compile an initial resource estimate by Q3 2025.
 ●    Community agreements are in place and the community are supportive of the
      Company and its activities in the area.
 ●    Max Tuesley, who has over 30 years' experience in base metal exploration, has
      joined the Company as Vice-President of Exploration.

 

Darren Bowden, CEO of Metals Exploration, commented:

"Our strategy is to grow Metals Exploration within the Philippines and
ultimately the broader region, leveraging our established in-country
knowledge, experience, and strong technical team.

"Our team at Runruno has set the bar for high performance, locally-run and
managed operations, and the Board is delighted to welcome Max Tuesley to the
team. Max brings extensive exploration experience both in the Philippines and
abroad and provides the management capability required to develop our
exploration potential. We look forward to working with him and utilising his
expertise to bring value to our portfolio.

"We are pleased that, with the assistance of the regulatory authorities, we
can now take the next step in the development of the Abra tenement, with the
Manikbel prospect being our focus in the short term."

 

Max Tuesley, Vice-President - Exploration

Max Tuesley is a geologist with more than 30 years' experience in base metal
and gold exploration and mining. Most recently Max was the Managing Director
of Culpeo Minerals Ltd, an ASX listed company with exploration assets in
Chile. Prior to this, his career was focussed on the Philippines where he
worked for more than 10 years. He has also led projects in Australia,
Mongolia, Papa New Guinea, Sudan and Laos. Max is a member of the Australasian
Institute of Mining and Metallurgy and a member and graduate of the Australian
Institute of Company Directors ("AICD").

Abra Project

The Abra Project area is located on the western belt of the highly endowed
Central Cordillera region in Abra, Luzon, approximately 200 kilometres ("km")
north of Metals Exploration's existing operations in Runruno.

Bangued, the provincial capital, is connected to Manila via the McArthur
highway.  The Abra Project covers the Municipalities of Licuan-Baay and
Lacub. The terrain is moderate to rugged, with established forested cover.
Water is readily available and main line power runs throughout the area,
however additional infrastructure may be required.

Figure 1: Abra Project Location Map

The Abra Project tenement area, with a strike length of approximately 20km,
covers an area of 16,200ha as shown in Figure 1.

The province is underlain extensively by volcaniclastics intruded by quartz
diorite and granodiorite.

Exploration Potential

The Central Cordillera of Luzon is formed of an uplifted and tectonised
magmatic arc associated with the Manila Trench subduction zone. The basement
Oligo-Miocene arc succession of volcanoclastic units is frequently intruded by
diorites, and has been impacted by a series of broadly North-South and
Northeast-Southwest trending structures associated with the dominant
Philippines Fault.

Various phases of structural evolution with associated periods of
mineralisation have created a target rich domain for exploration of copper and
gold targets associated with porphyry and epithermal systems.

The Cordillera region is a prolific gold belt in the Philippines with proven
endowment, having produced over 40 million ounces ("Moz") of gold
historically. Exploration in the Abra region was conducted by the Japanese
International Cooperation Agency ("JICA") in the late 1970s and early 1980s
and afterwards by various international explorers, as well as the Philippine
government.

Manikbel Prospect

The Manikbel prospect, a 4x2 km interpreted intrusive complex, is located
within a prominent 5x3 km circular caldera feature surrounded by smaller
circular anomalies and aligned with a major Northeast-Southwest trending
corridor.

Recent geological mapping has identified porphyry-type intrusives,
hydrothermal alteration, and both hypogene and supergene copper
mineralisation. Geochemical soil sampling revealed highly anomalous levels of
copper, molybdenum, lead, zinc and manganese, with copper/zinc ratios typical
of porphyry copper systems.

Aeromagnetic data highlighted several discrete magnetic anomalies,
particularly magnetic lows, coinciding with the geochemical and mapped
porphyry features. The mapped copper bearing porphyry-type intrusive and
hydrothermal alterations validate this structural relationship and highlights
the substantial potential of a major porphyry copper system in this region.

The map below outlines both the outline of the considered caldera and the
mapped intrusive features within.

Figure 2: Manikbel prospect location map on topographic base

Manikbel pre-exploration activities

The initial soil geochemistry and mapping used an anomalous cut off of 300
parts per million ("ppm"). The map below in Figure 3 shows the outcome of the
initial survey with the core of the intrusive showing copper values over
3,000ppm, which the Company considers to be extremely prospective. For scale,
the initial zone is some 1.5km by 800 metres ("m") at greater than 700ppm
copper, with an area of 1.5km(2) when reviewing greater than 300pm copper.
Figure 3 below shows the results of the initial programme.

Figure 3: Manikbel prospect soil geochemistry results

The soil geochemistry programme was subsequently extended to the Northeast and
the heat map for the total area shows that the anomalous copper zone extends
over 2.5km, even though the signature to the Northeast is not as strong.
Figure 4 below includes outcrop samples taken from the main creeks that cross
the area East to West coming down the ridgeline. For the length of each creek,
copper hosted porphyry outcrops were noted with copper grades over 3% copper.

Figure 4: Manikbel prospect soil geochemistry/rock chip results

Rock samples from the outcrops found in the creek beds are provided below in
Figure 5. Samples of over 3% copper have been recovered from the outcrops.

Figure 5: Manikbel prospect rock chip samples

 

Geophysics

A regional airborne geophysics programme has been undertaken across the wider
Abra tenement area and analysis of this data has been completed. This data has
provided another layer of interpretation to assist with the analysis of the
initial Manikbel prospect target area. The geophysics map below in Figure 6
shows a magnetic low (blue) surrounded by magnetic high features. Porphyry
orebodies can display as either magnetic high where the host is pyrite and
magnetite rich or as a magnetic low where the iron rich intrusive is replaced
by a secondary event that destroys the iron rich sulphides.

 

Figure 6: Manikbel prospect airborne geophysics

The following Figure 7 shows an outline of the magnetic low highlighted, the
initial target area.

Figure 7: Magnetic Low Outline and Initial Target Area

 

Exploration Drill Plan

In Figure 8, the trace of the magnetic low from the geophysics provided is
overlaid onto the results of the soil geochemistry (Figure 3) which further
highlights the initial target area, an intrusive associated with the magnetic
low signature is clearly outlined. This interpretation is supported by the
rock samples which do not present with pyrite or magnetite but with
chalcopyrite and bornite.

The Company's research indicates that two previous minor drill campaigns were
completed in the Manikbel prospect area some 40 plus years ago. A three hole
programme was undertaken by JICA, for which no detailed historical data exists
other than historical references to it provided by the local community. The
second programme was from holes drilled by the Philippine government mines
department ("MGB"). Some results from this programme, which was only drilled
to 120m, are shown below in Figure 8, together with the understood location of
the Japanese drill holes.

Figure 8 also shows the position of the first four drill holes. The map
provides the "drill section centre line" which is orientated at 30 degrees and
is 3.4km long. The plan will be to drill perpendicular to this centre line
over an area up to 1.5km wide, and for the first two collar positions to be
drilled in both directions (ie 300 azimuth and 120 azimuth). Future drill hole
orientation will be set once the orientation of the controls on mineralisation
are better understood.

MGB Drill Hole

120M deep 60m @ 1.1%, Including: 30m @ 1.63%

7m @ 4.7%

Open at Depth

Figure 8: Manikbel prospect's proposed initial target areas and drill
programme

It is also clear from Figure 8 that a secondary target is presenting on the
eastern side of the current soil geochemistry survey area. This area has been
noted for a follow up soil geochemistry extension programme in the near
future.

The Company owned diamond drill rig, acquired as part of the YMC transaction,
has a maximum depth of 320m and was chosen for its man portable capabilities,
particularly relevant to the difficult terrain Metals Exploration will be
drilling in. Should the initial drill programme be encouraging, a second man
portable diamond drill rig, that can drill to more than 500m, will be
mobilised.

Table 1 below provides details of the proposed initial drill holes.

 Drillhole Name  Elevation (m)  Azi  Dip  Target Depth(m)  Comment
 P_MAND-001      503            120  -60  0-300            To test mag-low with soil anomaly >700ppm Cu coincidence and 1%-5% Cu
                                                           outcrops
 P_MAND-002      503            300  -60  0-300            To test mag-low with soil anomaly >700ppm Cu coincidence and 1%-5% Cu
                                                           outcrops
 P_MAND-003      570            120  -60  0-300            To test mag-low with soil anomaly >700ppm Cu coincidence and 1%-5% Cu
                                                           outcrops
 P_MAND-004      570            300  -60  0-300            To test mag-low with soil anomaly >700ppm Cu coincidence and 1%-5% Cu
                                                           outcrops

 

Table 1: Metals Exploration drill hole details at the Manikbel prospect

 

This announcement contains inside information for the purposes of Article 7 of
EU Regulation 596/2014, which forms part of United Kingdom domestic law by
virtue of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018, as amended. Upon the
publication of this announcement, this inside information is now considered to
be in the public domain.

 

Glossary

Ag: means silver

Au: means gold

As: means arsenic

Caldera: means large volcanic crater

Cu: means copper

gm: means gramme

g/t: means grammes per tonne

km: means kilometres

M: means metres

Mo: means molybdenum

Moz: means million ounces

MT: means million tonnes

Pb: means lead

Porphory: means rock containing large crystals in fine-grained matrix

ppm: means parts per million

S: means sulphur

Zn: means zinc

 

 

 

For further information please visit or contact:

 Metals Exploration PLC
 Via Tavistock Communications Limited     +44 (0) 207 920 3150

 Nominated & Financial Adviser:           STRAND HANSON LIMITED
 James Spinney, James Dance, Rob Patrick  +44 (0) 207 409 3494

 Financial Adviser & Broker:              HANNAM & PARTNERS
 Matt Hasson, Franck Nganou               +44 (0) 207 907 8500

 Public Relations:                        TAVISTOCK COMMUNICATIONS LIMITED
 Jos Simson, Nick Elwes                   +44 (0) 207 920 3150

 

Web:                      www.metalsexploration.com
(http://www.metalsexploration.com)

X:                            @MTLexploration
(https://twitter.com/MTLexploration)

LinkedIn:               Metals Exploration
(https://www.linkedin.com/company/metals-exploration-plc)

 

 

Competent Person's Statement

Mr Darren Bowden, a director of the Company, a Member of the Australasian
Institute of Mining and Metallurgy and who has been involved in the mining
industry for more than 25 years, has compiled, read and approved the technical
disclosure in this regulatory announcement in accordance with the AIM Rules
for Companies - Note for Mining and Oil & Gas Companies.

Forward Looking Statements

Certain statements relating to the estimated or expected future production,
operating results, cash flows and costs and financial condition of Metals
Exploration, planned work at the Company's projects and the expected results
of such work contained herein are forward-looking statementswhich are based on
current expectations, estimates and projections about the potential returns of
the Group, industry and markets in which the Group operates in, the Directors'
beliefs and assumptions made by the Directors. Forward-looking statements are
statements that are not historical facts and are generally, but not always,
identified by words such as the following: "expects", "plans", "anticipates",
"forecasts", "believes", "intends", "estimates", "projects", "assumes",
"potential" or variations of such words and similar expressions.
Forward-looking statements also include reference to events or conditions that
will, would, may, could or should occur. Information concerning exploration
results, mineral grades and mineral reserve and resource estimates may also be
deemed to be forward-looking statements, as it constitutes a prediction of
what might be found to be present when and if a project is actually developed.

 

These statements are not guarantees of future performance or the ability to
identify and consummate investments and involve certain risks, uncertainties
and assumptions that are difficult to predict, qualify or quantify. Among the
factors that could cause actual results or projections to differ materially
include, without limitation: uncertainties related to raising sufficient
financing to fund the planned work in a timely manner and on acceptable terms;
changes in planned work resulting from logistical, technical or other factors;
the possibility that results of work will not fulfil projections/expectations
and realise the perceived potential of the Company's projects; uncertainties
involved in the interpretation of drilling results and other tests and the
estimation of gold, copper or other relevant mineral reserves and resources;
risk of accidents, equipment breakdowns and labour disputes or other
unanticipated difficulties or interruptions; the possibility of environmental
issues at the Company's projects; the possibility of cost overruns or
unanticipated expenses in work programs; the need to obtain permits and comply
with environmental laws and regulations and other government requirements;
fluctuations in the price of gold, copper and other relevant minerals and
other risks and uncertainties.

 

The Company expressly disclaims any obligation or undertaking to disseminate
any updates or revisions to any forward-looking statements contained herein to
reflect any change in the Group's expectations with regard thereto or any
change in events, conditions or circumstances on which any such statements are
based unless required to do so by applicable law or the AIM Rules for
Companies.

 

 

 

 

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