Red Metal has swooped on available ground near its Gulf and Three Ways projects in Queensland, lodging 17 additional tenement applications for land prospective for iron oxide-copper-gold (IOCG) deposits. The company is motoring ahead with its “Big Copper” strategy as it looks to unlock giant IOCG discoveries analogous to the nearby mammoth Ernest Henry deposit and BHP’s Oak Dam deposit, which sits near its Olympic Dam mine in South Australia’s Gawler Craton.
The newly lodged applications extend the company’s ground across a 160km by 60km belt around its two projects. The company’s new and existing applications now cover a vast 5,800 square kilometres of prospective terrain.
In what appears to be a savvy move, the company says a high-resolution airborne gravity survey is now underway, piggybacking on concurrent regional airborne gravity surveys conducted by the Geological Survey of Queensland and Geoscience Australia. Red Metal will use the surveys to unlock further prospective terrain to the east, while significantly cutting mobilisation costs by leveraging the two government-backed programs.
The company plans to drill two fully funded follow-up holes, at Gulf’s GT06 target and Three Ways Target 132, testing along trend from previously identified fertile IOCG breccias. Notably, the drilling will be partially funded by a $200,000 Queensland Government grant, testing a coincident gravity-magnetic anomaly on trend from a fertile hematite breccia intersected at its nearby GT07 prospect.
At the Three Ways project, the company says a large untested copper target remains open, with a 2025 drillhole missing the core of target 132’s magnetic model because it deviated off-trend to the north.
Managing director Rob Rutherford said: “These hematite-style breccia have us excited because they share many characteristics with the giant copper-gold deposits in South Australia’s Gawler Craton.”