Canadian-focused gold explorer Matador Mining Ltd (ASX: MZZ) is set to add a high-grade copper play in the Canadian province of Newfoundland to its suite of projects in the territory.
The project – Blue Cove – is relatively unexplored, although historic sampling there has revealed grades of up to 10.6 per cent copper and up to 106 grams per tonne of silver, with the play believed to be prospective for these minerals, as well as lead and zinc.
According to the option agreement for this acquisition, Matador will take on 78 non-contiguous claims for 19.5 kilometres in total, although the company has also staked another 113 claims adjacent to the project – covering 28.25km – which ensures 25km of combined contiguous strike.
Matador has already identified five target areas for future exploration: Blue Cove, Ryles Barisway, Terenceville, Hilltop Grid and Harbour Mille. The first of these is notable for a large outcrop yielding high-grade samples of copper as well as silver.
Matador’s managing director and CEO, Sam Pazuki said Blue Cove – which is 260km from the provincial capital St John’s – would be attractive to shareholders as a low cost but highly prospective exploration project.
“Blue Cove is an underexplored project with numerous high-grade copper targets that have not been fully assessed. It is in an area of the province that we view as having incredible potential,” he said.
“Five high quality targets have already been defined on the project, with rock chip sampling from the Blue Cove target area returning greater than 1% copper from over 50% of the samples collected and greater than 2% copper from about a third of the samples collected including specific samples grading up to 5.1% copper and 33.2 grams per tonne silver.
“Blue Cove further enhances what I believe is one of the best exploration ground holdings in Newfoundland, complementing our district-scale land package on the Cape Ray Shear Zone and our highly prospective Hermitage Project.”
The company plans to begin early-stage exploration at the project during the Canadian summer.
Matador Mining has been trading at 6.8c