• Hole EPT2431 at Tyrell returned 12.7 metres at 4.9 per cent copper from 25.75 metres, within 44 metres at 1.7 per cent copper.
  • Other holes at Maitland, Griffin and Armstrong returned lower-grade copper intersections, and the diamond tail of EPT2439 found no significant additional copper sulphide.
  • A strategic review of the company's copper Assets is under way; no transaction is announced and no timing or outcome is described.

Encounter Resources Limited (ASX:ENR) has reported results from three diamond holes at its 100-per-cent-owned Yeneena Copper Project in the Paterson Province of Western Australia. The headline result is from hole EPT2431 at the Tyrell prospect, which the company says is the first hole drilled there since 2014. The results are exploration drilling and do not change the company's reported Mineral Resource.

The Tyrell result

EPT2431 returned 12.7 metres at 4.9 per cent copper from 25.75 metres, within a wider zone of 44 metres at 1.7 per cent copper from 8.1 metres. The company says the high-grade component forms part of a zone above two per cent copper that is about 200 metres wide on section. Mineralisation is described as copper oxide minerals, including malachite and chrysocolla, in weathered shale.

Encounter states that this grade is more than double that of the existing Tyrell Inferred Mineral Resource, which is 2.9 million tonnes at 0.79 per cent copper, including 1.1 million tonnes at 1.27 per cent copper, above a 0.25 per cent cut-off. The company identifies a north-north-east structural corridor, interpreted over three kilometres from airborne electromagnetic data, as a priority target for copper sulphide along strike of the Tyrell oxide deposit.

Maitland, Griffin and Armstrong

At Maitland, hole EPT2433 returned a lower-grade 10.6 metres at 0.3 per cent copper from 204.15 metres. Encounter points to nearby historical intersections, including 10 metres at 1.64 per cent copper from 164 metres in EPT1112, which it says remains open at depth and along the plunge. The company interprets the corridor as bounding the high-grade zones at both Tyrell and Maitland.

At Griffin, 2026 reverse circulation pre-collars returned 16 metres at 0.5 per cent copper from 32 metres in EPT2438 and 20 metres at 0.4 per cent copper from 36 metres in EPT2439, including 2 metres at 1.7 per cent. However, the diamond tail of EPT2439, drilled to 548.1 metres, found no significant additional copper sulphide, with chalcopyrite described as trace. At Armstrong, a reverse circulation hole returned 6 metres at 0.6 per cent copper from 130 metres, and the zone remains open. The company has been awarded a grant of up to $180,000 for diamond drilling in 2027, co-funded under the Exploration Incentive Scheme.

Context and reporting limits

Encounter says copper mineralisation at Parbo extends for more than eight kilometres along the McKay Fault, and that large, shallow copper oxide blankets sit in the southern part of the system. Its target model is structurally controlled, sediment-hosted copper, which it compares with the Nifty copper mine about 65 kilometres to the north. That is the company's own geological analogy.

All intervals are down-hole lengths and true widths are not yet known. Results are reported above a nominal 1,000 parts per million copper cut-off with up to four metres of internal dilution and no upper cut. The announcement notes that a four-metre interval in EPT2439, from 58 to 62 metres, was not recovered and is excluded, and that it may contain copper above the cut-off.

Strategic review and next steps

Encounter states that a strategic review of its copper assets is under way. The announcement does not describe the form, timing or likely outcome of that review, and no transaction is announced. The company says it will feed the Parbo results into the review.

Its stated next steps are to plan the next phase of Parbo drilling, testing extensions at Tyrell and Maitland along strike and at depth as well as Griffin and Armstrong, and to carry out sighter metallurgical leach testing on Parbo oxide samples. No drilling dates, budget or metallurgical results are provided.