Zenith secured its Flanagans project in northern Queensland in 2020, saying it was rich with "outstanding" potential, but last year it elected to sell it for some A$450,000 in cash and shares to start-up explorer Bindi Metals.

 

It had originally picked up the area believing it had been overlooked thanks to typographical error that obscured the presence of high-grade mineralisation at surface, but as part of its push into battery metals it deemed the area as non-core.

 

Now known as the Biloela gold and copper project, is being used by non-executive chair and well-known company director Eddie King, executive director and geologist Henry Renou, who has worked with Fortescue Metals Group and Ibaera Capital, and Ex-Snowdon CFO Cameron McLean, to raise A$4.8 million at 20c per share, with the cash to help prepare the Flanagans and Great Blackall prospects for drilling. 

 

Biloela covers 62sq.km about 90km southwest of the Port of Gladstone, and sits in the Yarrol province, on the western edge of the New England fold belt. 

 

The Great Blackall and Flanagans copper deposits were discovered in 1869 and worked between 1870 and 1874, with further small-scale mining around Flanagans during the 1930s. 

 

Records suggest the Great Blackall mine lode was about 1.2m thick grading around 6% copper, and worked to depths of 50m. 

 

It has been explored periodically since the 1960s, with the most recent work by Zenith limited to soil sampling and rock chip for gold only.

 

Bindi describes the project as being an early stage exploration play with proven high tenor of anomalies at surface, with outcropping copper-gold-silver-molybdenum mineralisation at the Flanagans, Great Blackall and Inverted Pig prospects, which is considered to be possible evidence for a concealed porphyry system at depth.

 

Assuming a successful listing, Bindi will spend half of its capital on exploration. 

 

Great Blackall is open at depth, below the historical copper working, while Flanagans, 1km away, has a series of small, shallow pits and shafts that delivered "rich and extensive" copper, with the gold potential not fully tested. 

 

Initial reconnaissance sampling by Bindi returned up to 5.3 grams per tonne gold, 100gpt silver and 8% copper at Flanagans and 3.4gpt gold, 273gopt silver and 14% copper at Great Blackall.

 

Inverted Pig is immediately south of Great Blackall, and is marked by a magnetic low.

 

The Quartz Ridge prospect is located southeast of the Great Blackall Prospect. Historical Rock chips have shown promising gold assays.

 

Bindi hopes to list this month.