David Busch – Argent Minerals

ONE OFF THE WOOD: Argent Minerals managing director David Busch dropped by The Roadhouse this week to give us an update on the latest drilling campaign currently underway at the company’s Kempfield polymetallic project.

Argent Minerals’ (ASX: ARD) Kempfield polymetallic project has a JORC Code (2012)-compliant Mineral Resource of 21.8 million tonnes for 52 million ounces of silver equivalent contained metal, which the company believes provides it with a strong foundation to aggressively pursue the sizeable upside potential it has already identified at Kempfield.

Argent’s strategy for Kempfield is to focus on exploration high rich base and precious metal grades, which has led it to identify rich combined lead-zinc grades of up to 17.9 per cent immediately to the west of the existing Mineral Resource, as well as the potential for multiple additional VMS lenses and a feeder zone.

RR: David, Argent has three projects, all located in the Lachlan Orogen of New South Wales, could you just run through them for me?

DB: The Kempfield polymetallic project is the flagship, which we hold 100 per cent. It is located just southwest of Bathurst in New South Wales.

West Wyalong is the next project, in which we hold a 51 per cent interest – that’s a porphyry-copper-gold project.

Sunny Corner is the third project, it is situated just east of Kempfield, and we consider it to have the potential to produce feedstock for the Kempfield mine once we get it up and running.

 

RR: That’s an impressive portfolio, but the Kempfield, where recent drilling encountered 5 metres at 4 grams per tonne gold from 353m, is currently generating the most excitement?

DB: The project has a history of companies attempting to develop it as a pure silver play, but dedicated silver projects are hard to come by in Australia – where silver generally is a by-product of polymetallic base metal mines, and a contribution to the overall economics package.

In the vicinity, just to the west of Lens Three, is where we intersected the 17.9 per cent combined lead-zinc, which was extremely encouraging.

So the approach we have taken with Kempfield is to take a closer look at the base metals potential.

This has been vindicated by our recent drilling results that intersected a style and grade of gold mineralisation and host rock alteration, which together are indicative of a high temperature Volcanogenic Massive Sulphide (VMS) feeder zone.

RR:  In other words you could say the Kempfield project has moved on from being a primary silver mine?

DB: That’s right. We focused our attention to the west of the current Resource where we established a range of exploration vectors through lithofacies and alteration analysis, sophisticated geophysics, geochemistry, and isotope studies, and the signs have all been good – our exploration model has been based on all that research work.

We are drilling there now and the first two holes, for which we have received New South Wales Government funding, have been designed to intersect the interpreted lenses that we have identified out to the west.

 

RR: As far as that program goes it appears to be so far – all good?

DB: Well, what has happened with the first hole – AKDD178 – is that it has encountered the richest gold grades we have seen at Kempfield to date, and the context indicative of a feeder zone.

Although that means our modelling may change to some extent, it also means that the basic principal of our modelling has been verified – at least at this early stage of the drilling campaign.

That’s very exciting, because that means we have established ‘bookends’ for a potentially much larger VMS system, with the prospect of high base metal grades in between.

Where we have just drilled and intersected four grams per tonne gold is the western ‘bookend’ associated with a high temperature feeder gold zone, and the very most easterly side of Lens One is the silver/barite ‘bookend’, where we have already delineated a Resource, and in between we expect to encounter the rich base metals where we have already intersected rich grades.

We’re waiting to see the results of the rest of the drilling, but we have a higher level of confidence now, although we also realise that nothing is certain until the drill core assays tell us what is actually there.

RR: The project has managed to attract some highly-credentialed people to come and work for you?

DB: Our chief geologist, Dr Vladimir David, when he was working with Pasminco, designed the first hole that led to the discovery of the original Hera gold polymetallic deposit by the team in 2001. He is a specialist when it comes to VMS deposits.

We have also engaged Professor Ross Large of the Australian Research Council Centre for Excellence in Ore Deposits (CODES).

His first reaction after inspecting Kempfield core trays and seeing an example of the outcropping in the Causeway Zone was to compare the potential footwall mineralisation to the Que River deposit in Tasmania (3.3Mt at 13.3 per cent zinc, 7.4 per cent lead, 0.7 per cent copper, 195g/t silver, 3.3g/t gold).

RR: The obvious question is what is your next move?

DB: There will be more drilling – that’s the obvious next step. Where we drill exactly, will depend on the results of this current campaign.

As I mentioned before, the model will most likely be refined as the drilling provides a much clearer idea of what we are looking at.

We expect this campaign to do just that, particularly with the EM surveys we plan to carry out after completing the first two holes, and also, possibly, some MMR work, which is not a much-used technique, but is one that works well at Kempfield for identifying zinc and lead mineralisation.

If you have a look at where the previous owners carried out most of their drilling you see most is concentrated on in-filling the current Resource, but there was virtually no drilling done to the west, which is completely open and where we believe the real story could be told.

So far this first round of drilling is showing we could be right…very right.