Hillgrove has announced on the ASX this morning that it has discovered surface outcrops of high-grade copper and gold zones at the Mt Rhine exploration project in South Australia.
The company reports that returns from rock chip sampling indicate 13.1 per cent copper yield and 49.8 grams of gold a tonne, from different samples.
The Mt Rhine project is approximately 80 kilometres from the Kanmantoo processing plant and 12 kilometres from the Kanappa copper-gold project, which returned similar copper-gold results for Hillgrove in May, albeit with higher levels of copper and lower levels of gold (34.8 per cent and 4 grams a tonne from different samples).
The company’s flagship Kanmantoo open pit is currently undergoing depth extension mining, and is milling copper-gold at a current rate of $7.30 a tonne. The combination of these three projects represents an ambitious step for Hillgrove, who are hoping for a positive 2017–18 financial year as a result of the discoveries. It currently produces around 20,000 tonnes of copper and 11,000 ounces of gold per annum from an overall haul of 20 million tonnes a year.