Red Rock Resources (RRR ) has published the results of a reverse circulation (RC) drill programme at the Luanshimba copper-cobalt project in which it owns a 80% interest.
The Luanshimba project in the Haut-Katanga Province is operated by Red Rock Galaxy SA, an 80% owned Congolese subsidiary of Red Rock, a natural resource development company which has interests in gold and base metals and operates principally in Africa and Australia.
The RC drill programme, which started at the Luanshimba project in June 2021, was carried out by Rubaco SARL, with geological support from Minerals Exploration Associates SARL.
To date, 2,763 samples from the 2,469m, 29 hole programme have now been analysed and returned with three prospects now named as Kilembwe (18 holes), Luanshimba North (9 holes) and Luanshimba East (2 holes) having been drilled as part of the RC programme.
While 7 holes stopped before target depth due to ground conditions and general limit of drilling 100m due to rig limitations, significant copper intersections were returned including 6 metres at 0.61% (including 1m at 1.45%) towards the bottom of hole DRC014 at Kilembwe.
Today, the company has concluded that these copper intercepts appear to be present as hypogene chalcopyrite in reduced dolomite underlying carbonaceous shales with pyrite, in a sequence interpreted as similar to the Kitwe Formation of the Zambian Copperbelt.
It said future exploration will test the potential 1.3km of continuity between these two areas of reduced dolomite underlying carbonaceous shale with potential copper/cobalt ores at depth.
Cobalt is also extensively present, occurring as heterogenite in fault gouges and breccia.
The company said this combination of occasional high cobalt grades, with areas of considerable vertical extent of mineralisation, suggest that although weathering has been a significant factor in mineralisation there are likely to be others, requiring further drill testing.
Shares in Red Rock Resources were trading 9.09% to 0.6p this morning following the news.
Red Rock’s initial drill programme was to test the hypothesis that the geochemical anomalies and favourable geophysics were not associated with potentially significant mineralisation.
Commenting on this latest set of results, Chairman, Andrew Bell, told investors: “The fences were 100m apart and we only drilled at intervals of 200m or more, so the drilling was wide-spaced, and only to about 100m depth, so through the water table but hardly beyond. We could easily have missed every target, and could hardly expect to hit any bullseyes.”
He commented: “What has been achieved has therefore greatly exceeded our expectations and can be considered a success, identifying but barely penetrating a potentially large Copper-bearing structure, as well as encountering significant thicknesses and some exceptional grades of Cobalt which with closer-spaced RAB drilling can be better defined.”
The next stage of exploration “will need to include diamond drilling to increase structural understanding and to test for Copper and Cobalt bearing ores deeper in the sequence.”
Red Rock owns a 80% interest of the Luanshimba Project, which is situated 65 km south-east of the provincial capital of Lubumbashi in Haut-Katanga, in a 420 hectare prospecting licence (PR13513) which sits in the Congolese Copper belt of the Democratic Republic of Congo.
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