Please start by giving our readers a brief introduction to Cannindah Resources (CAE).
Cannindah Resources Limited (ASX: CAE) is a copper and gold exploration company based in Queensland Australia. The company has been around for many years, and was previously known as Queensland Ores and Planet Metals.
More recently, the company has been focused on its flagship asset at Mt Cannindah. This project consists of nine mining leases surrounded by two EPMs. The project is located 100km south of the port of Gladstone and has excellent access to existing infrastructure. Mt Cannindah is predominantly a copper project, but it also contains significant gold hits.
Speaking of gold, we also hold a large gold exploration portfolio in North Queensland Australia called Piccadilly and Percy Marlow. CAE has planned some ground-based exploration across newly granted EPMs at Percy Marlow which is due to be completed shortly. However CAE is currently focused on the drilling at Mt Cannindah.
Recent ASX releases regarding Mt Cannindah have outlined diamond drill intercepts over hundreds of metres which have Cu grades above 1% CuEq making the project very interesting in terms of its size, location, and the fact that it is within an existing mining lease. Critical metals, such as copper, have become the focus of many countries as they push towards the targets for green energy. CAE is well placed to take advantage of the increase in demand and will continue to focus on increasing the resource size to build wealth for its shareholders.
CAE’s two active projects are the Cu-Mo-Au Mt Cannindah Project in Queensland and the Piccadilly Gold Project, also in Queensland. Please give readers some background to each one.
CAE has held the Mt Cannindah project for some time. However, it wasn’t until after a review of the project that the possibility of significantly improving the known resource became a reality. Previous drilling had been conducted in the exact opposite direction to that which CAE has successfully embarked on in this current programme.
The Mt Cannindah copper gold project has an existing JORC resource of 5.5Mt @ 0.93% Cu which the current diamond drilling programme is designed to significantly increase once completed. The recent drilling has outlined extensions of the known mineralization on the project both to the north and to the south along strike. The last release to the ASX confirmed that CAE has now completed Hole 11, which was the deepest hole to date, reaching a depth of approximately 1,100m. Therefore the current programme and its 11 holes has outlined that the mineralization also extends significantly at depth as well most other directions, so we will continue drilling to find more tonnes and grade.
The Piccadilly Project is located further north in Queensland Australia being approximately 100km west of the port city of Townsville. Piccadilly is modelled as an intrusive related gold system target and has support from significant drilling and ground-based exploration.
High-grade gold veins containing up to 79g/t Au have been located at or near surface on site and this had led to more exploration ground being applied for adjacent to the current Piccadilly ground which we have called Percy Marlow.
Piccadilly has an existing mining lease surrounded by two EPM areas and the adjacent Percy Marlow consists of two EPM areas. Historical drilling at Percy Marlow has identified significant gold grades worthy of follow up so we will apply the knowledge from exploring Piccadilly to the new ground in the hope we can link up some significant gold targets.
These projects are all located in the gold province of Charters Towers and we look forward to providing shareholders with updates regarding these projects in the coming months.
Recently, you reported aggregate drilling results of 295m @ 0.84% Cu, 0.33 g/t Au, and 13.2 g/t Ag at Mt Cannindah. What are the next steps for this project?
This recent report on Hole 11, whilst fantastic, doesn’t put the significance of the hole into the appropriate light until you aggregate the entire 1,100m hole. Once you do this you find that there is an intercept which is 1,022m at approximately 0.5% CuEq, which is very impressive by world standards. This upper section equates to 295m at 1.14% CuEq below this was a significant gold hit as well with 21m at almost 2g/t Au including 1m at 9.6g/t Au from 792m. A further gold zone below 860m has some high grade as well such as 9m at 1.62g/t Au which included 1m at 7.73g/t Au from 860m.
CAE has consistently hit massive copper intercepts and located new gold zones whilst doing so over the course of this current programme. The plan from here is to continue to expand the size of the target areas within the project.
There is still significant breccia to explore within the areas we have currently identified without getting into new areas of interest. So in terms of next steps we have planned out another six holes which we intend to hit as soon as possible with the drill. This will give us a significant amount of data regarding the size of the animal we are dealing with. Once these results are to hand, I suspect we will be involved in a more in depth drilling programme attacking new areas and completing some infill over the areas we have brought to light in this current programme.
We anticipate an updated resource target along with some more impressive results once we continue our current programme. This will place CAE in the hotseat holding one of the more impressive copper/gold exploration projects in the country.
With more drilling to come, how is CAE placed to fund more exploration activity?
We have recently raised capital to continue to fund the current drilling from some very supportive sophisticated investors. CAE enjoys a very tight register, which can be a double-edged sword; however, it will certainly make for a stellar run on the stock price once the true understanding of the scale and importance of the project hits home with investors.
The stock is hard to get so anyone wanting in will just have to pay for it. Its unlikely CAE will be held down at these current price levels with nothing but more and more copper and gold being located as we drill each hole.
What makes CAE an attractive prospect for investors?
The excellence in exploration we strive for each day along with the location and geology of the project make it attractive. We have a reputation for being very transparent in every one of our ASX releases. This is very deliberate as we are very confident in our data we produce and we welcome scrutiny in our exploration approach.
Once you get past the fact that the project is the real deal you then look to see how the company looks and it is the real deal as well. Our top 20 shareholders own nearly 80% of the stock with a number of rich listers on the register including a billionaire from Hong Kong who owns approximately 47%. So when we say its tightly held, we mean it. We are well supported with a great project in an excellent location which will become a mine one day. The Mt Cannindah asset is clearly attractive to other parties, so the question is, will it be us that takes it there?
Are there any future plans in the pipeline you can share with us?
We will be developing a large copper/gold project. We will also develop a large pure gold project further north. There are still many more prospect areas for us to focus on so it is a matter of watching this space in terms of how big we can get and also how much interest we generate in doing so.
