The diamond hole returned 24m at 0.66% copper and 11.8 grams per tonne gold from 161m, including 5.7m at 0.74% and 49.3gpt, and 5m at 1.06% copper and 23.9gpt.

 

The hole was completed west of the recent ‘spectacular' assay of 30.5m at 6.2% copper and 6.8gpt gold from 154m, and has increased the strike to over 240m, with a depth extent of 250m.

 

Other results indicate the continuity of the copper at depth with 8.4m at 1.61% copper and 0.13gpt gold from 210m, including 3m at 3.64% copper, over 13m at 1.24% copper from 244m, including 4.5m at 3.42% and 0,.16gpt.

 

Chair Matthew Driscoll said the discovery had demonstrated continuity of the high-grade gold zone, and was looking increasingly like a repeat of some of the best known high-grade copper-gold orebodies at Tennant Creek, including the Peko deposit, only 20km west of Bluebird, which produced 3.7 million tonnes grading 4% copper and 3.5gpt gold b prior to the 1970s.

 

Bluebird, which is 40km west of Tennant Creek in the Northern Territory, remains open in all directions. 

 

The area has been overlooked due to the presence of weathering and shallow cover.

 

Two follow-up drilling programs are about to start, targeting the shallow-plunging high-grade gold-copper zone at Bluebird and the deeper potential, and at priority geophysical targets along the 2.5km-long Bluebird-Perseverance corridor.

 

Tennant recently raised A$5 million at 3.5c to accelerate exploration of the wider Barkly project. 

 

The company hopes its Barkly tenements contain multiple, multi-million-tonne copper-gold deposits that can support a stand-alone mining and processing operation. 

 

Shares in the explorer have been 2.5-8.3c over the past year and were up 3% this morning at 3.3c, valuing it at $25 million.