Bulls N’ Bears Big Hits looks at notable drill hits recently reported to the ASX, led by Aruma Resources in Ontario, with McLaren Minerals in Western Australia and BMC Minerals in Yukon.

It has been a thinner-than-usual week for Big Hits. However, the best of the bunch still delivered a useful spread of copper-silver, heavy minerals and polymetallic results across Canada and Australia.

So, let’s dive in.

ARUMA RESOURCES (ASX: AAJ)

Project: Tillex copper-silver project, Timmins mining district, Ontario, Canada.

Hit: 89m at 2.04 per cent copper and 12.31g/t silver from 38.8m, including 16.87m at 4.02 per cent copper and 16.85g/t silver from 93m.

Aruma Resources had little trouble taking top billing after pulling three broad, high-grade copper-silver intersections from a phase-one diamond drilling program at its Tillex project in Canada’s world-class Timmins mining district.

The district is best known as one of Canada’s great mining camps, with a long history of gold and base-metal production. The nearby Kidd Creek operation also provides a well-known benchmark for the volcanogenic massive sulphide-style mineralisation Aruma is chasing.

The headline hole cut 89m at 2.04 per cent copper and 12.31 grams per tonne (g/t) silver from 38.8m, including 8m at 3.13 per cent copper and 5.5g/t silver from 55m, 3.9m at 4.06 per cent copper and 43.6g/t silver from 74.1m, with a closing hurrah of 16.87m at 4.02 per cent copper and 16.85g/t silver from 93m.

Importantly, the hit was no one-off. A second hole 50m north of the headline hole returned 87m at 1.99 per cent copper and 12.63g/t silver from 30m, including 5.6m at 5.36 per cent copper and 56.89g/t silver from 98m. A mere 20m away from the headline hole, a third hole nailed 59m at 1.91 per cent copper and 8.80g/t silver from 38m.

Aruma says the latest results confirm shallow, continuous mineralisation across Tillex and reinforce the case that the project is shaping up as a significant copper-silver development play rather than a narrow one-hit wonder.

Management says the consistency of the mineralisation, the broad widths and the fact the system remains open along strike and at depth give it increasing confidence in Tillex’s scale and growth potential.

The company is chasing a volcanogenic massive sulphide (VMS)-style system at Tillex, where copper-silver mineralisation sits within a broader geological package that also hosts zinc.

While zinc is not the money shot in this week’s headline holes, Aruma says anomalous zinc in a nearby deeper hole, 120m southeast of the above cluster of intercepts, is an important pathfinder that may point back towards a hotter, copper-rich core of the system.

That interpretation is supported by downhole electromagnetic work, which has outlined a southwest-plunging conductive trend extending beyond the current drilling area and provided a clear pointer for follow-up work.

In plain English, the company believes the geochemistry and geophysics are pointing in the same direction, giving it a better map for the next phase of drilling.

Adding another wrinkle, Aruma also picked up copper mineralisation in feldspar porphyry, a rock unit that had not been a major focus of historic exploration. The company will include porphyry samples in upcoming metallurgical test work to see whether it is simply a useful pointer to the main zone or something with standalone copper potential.

The next move is a 3500-metre to 4000-metre phase-two diamond drilling program, due to start next month, targeting strike extensions of the Tillex deposit.

Aruma also plans more downhole electromagnetic work, metallurgical sampling, re-assaying of historic pulps and 3D modelling as it works to convert a strong first-pass hit parade into a clearer development story.

Aruma’s blend of width, copper grade, silver credits and Canadian address makes it the clear lead this week.

MCLAREN MINERALS (ASX: MML)

Project: McLaren titanium project, Western Eucla Basin, Western Australia.

Hit: 22m from surface at 7.62 per cent heavy minerals, with a peak one-metre grade of 30.65 per cent heavy minerals from 19m.

McLaren Minerals brought the week’s best change-up, trading its more familiar gold and copper numbers for a set of near-surface heavy mineral (HM) hits from an aircore resource upgrade and expansion drilling at its namesake titanium project in Western Australia’s Eucla Basin.

The standout hole, drilled in the project’s south-eastern extension area outside the current indicated resource footprint, returned 22m from surface at 7.62 per cent HM, including a peak one-metre interval grading 30.65 per cent HM from 19m.

A second extension hole, 560 metres north-northeast of the headline hit, added 24m from surface at 4.75 per cent HM, including a peak one-metre grade of 16.73 per cent HM from 17m.

Drilling within the broader resource area produced more thick, shallow intercepts, including 24m from surface at 8.01 per cent HM, with a peak one-metre grade of 29.68 per cent HM, and 18m from surface at 7.36 per cent HM, with a peak one-metre grade of 20.8 per cent HM.

For extra sparkle, McLaren also reported a separate one-metre heavy mineral peak of 34.61 per cent from 19m in another hole, giving the company plenty of reason to use the word “bonanza” in this week’s announcement.

The key point is not just the grades, but their position. All reported headline intersections begin at surface and the first holes into the south-eastern extension have now been followed up with another 12 holes on 300m by 300m spacing, with assays still to come.

McLaren’s broader drill program has now reached 9768m from 551 holes, representing about three-quarters of a planned 13,000m resource upgrade and expansion campaign. The program has been designed to increase confidence in the company’s 529-million-tonne JORC-compliant indicated and inferred mineral resource and to inform future reserve and bankable feasibility study work.

Managing director Simon Finnis said the consistency of mineralisation across McLaren was giving the company confidence in the project, with the latest work improving its understanding of continuity across the deposit and beginning to define a broader area of higher-grade mineralised sands in the northwest of the deposit.

Next up, McLaren expects to complete the phase-two drilling program by late June and to receive assays from the follow-up holes in the south-eastern extension. The company then plans to fold the results into an updated mineral resource before pushing ahead with reserve, metallurgical and bankable feasibility study work.

In a week short on obvious standouts, McLaren’s shallow titanium-heavy mineral hits earned the number two spot by bringing a different commodity, a surface-start advantage and some properly eye-catching peak heavy mineral grades.

BMC MINERALS (ASX: BMC)

Project: Kudz Ze Kayah project, Fuego prospect, Yukon, Canada.

Hit: 5.5m at 163g/t silver, 6.4 per cent zinc, 0.9g/t gold, 0.2 per cent copper and 4.6 per cent lead from 57m.

BMC Minerals rounds out this week’s Big Hits with a compact, high-grade polymetallic punch from diamond drilling at the Fuego prospect within its Kudz Ze Kayah (KZK) project in Canada’s Yukon.

The headline intercept in the 60-degree, east-inclined drill hole returned 5.5m assaying 163g/t silver, 6.4 per cent zinc, 0.9g/t gold, 0.2 per cent copper and 4.6 per cent lead from 57m depth in fault-hosted massive sulphide mineralisation.

With the orientation of the intercepted mineralisation currently uncertain, the true width of the interval is not yet available.

Two shallow follow-up hits gave the result extra weight. Another hole, 217m south of the headline hit in a separate mineralised zone, cut 4.5m at 78g/t silver, 4.2 per cent zinc, 0.5g/t gold, 1.2 per cent copper and 0.8 per cent lead from just 15.5m depth.

A further 33m south, another shallow result delivered a 6-metre intercept going 58g/t silver, 4.8 per cent zinc, 0.3g/t gold, 0.7 per cent copper and 0.8 per cent lead from 6.5m.

The latter two intervals were both reported as true-width intercepts, strengthening Fuego’s case as a near-surface target immediately south and east of BMC’s proposed ABM mine.

The company says high-grade massive sulphide mineralisation has been encountered at several points along an estimated 1000m-long Fuego corridor. It believes the prospect may represent part of a feeder-zone system linked to the larger nearby ABM deposit, with the Fault Creek structure interpreted as a pathway for mineralising fluids.

In simple terms, the new hits appear to show that the fluid pathway, which helped form the main system, may still have more metal to give nearby.

The broader KZK program is not short on drilling metres, either. BMC is working through 20,000m of diamond drilling across multiple high-priority targets within 5km of the proposed ABM mine, with Fuego sitting immediately adjacent to the planned mine site.

The program is supported by ground and drone-borne geophysics and surface geochemistry to refine targets.

Next up, drilling at Fuego is set to resume in September to test the extent of the mineralised zone. Before then, the company will drill the GP4F prospect in July, 5km east-southeast of the ABM site and the Rhyolite Peak prospect 1.1km west along strike, as it continues hunting for additional high-grade sulphide lenses around the proposed ABM mine centre.

Although it may not have had the headline width of Aruma or the novelty of McLaren’s heavy mineral sands, BMC still earned its place this week with a high-grade, near-surface Yukon polymetallic hit and a useful dose of geographic and commodity variety.

Is your ASX-listed company doing something interesting? Contact:

matt.birney@wanews.com.au