It’s the kind of exploration program that you’d expect a major mining company to undertake.
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And yet, here is relatively tiny Inflection Resources (AUCU.CN; AUCUF.OTC) conducting a search on the largest 100%-owned land position in Australia’s New South Wales for world-class copper-gold porphyry deposits.
Its Northern NSW project lies along the northern extension of the Macquarie Arc — a belt of volcanic rocks that hosts several major mines, including Newcrest’s Cadia gold-copper mine (Australia’s biggest gold mine), Evolution Mining’s Cowal gold mine and China Molybdenum’s and Sumitomo’s Northparkes copper-gold mine.
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Inflection’s investment and exploration thesis is simple: Use shallow drilling to test a multitude of very large Tier 1-scale targets as quickly and as cost effectively as possible and find NSW’s next Northparkes or Cowal or Cadia.
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All of Inflection's targets are being drilled for the very first time.
It’s a “stick-and-move/drill-and-kill” approach to drill-testing a large portfolio of targets that either tags a target for follow up or crosses it off Inflection’s list.
With three targets already worthy of significant follow-up identified and several more being tested right now, the window to wager on major discovery here could close at any moment.
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A Massive Land Position In New South Wales
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Inflection’s Northern NSW project makes up the bulk of its 100% owned 500,000-hectare land position in the Australian state.
How was Inflection able to acquire such a large land position?
The map below tells the tale.
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Note the orange area on the top of the map on the left — that’s where the Macquarie Arc that hosts those major mines disappears under a layer of post-mineral cover masking the underlying prospective geology.
This sedimentary layer presents challenges to explorers looking to vector in on the type of large, porphyry-style deposits that may lay below.
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But where others saw challenges, Inflection saw opportunity.
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And, with the guidance of a technical team led by Dr. Douglas Haynes, it staked out the dominant position over the inferred continuance of the Macquarie Arc under this post-mineral cover.
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Drilling For The Kind Of Deposits That Start Bidding Wars
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To stake that position, the company combined government-flown airborne magnetic data with data from a 15,000-line kilometer magnetic survey flown by Inflection.
This process identified more than 20 very large targets on the district-scale land position…with any given target having the potential to host the kind of large, porphyry-style copper-gold resource that could potentially start a bidding war among mid-tier and major mining companies.
And Inflection is taking a hyper-efficient approach to drilling the portfolio. It aims to drill as many of these targets as quickly and cost effectively as possible and will walk away from any target if key attributes are absent.
Still another map of the project demonstrates the approach:
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Currently, Inflection is half-way through its initial program, and the target winnowing process is already in full effect.
The “red” targets above are those that have yielded strong evidence of a potential porphyry-style mineralization source. Inflection has marked these as high-priority targets for follow-up drilling.
The “yellow” targets have shown some promise and are moderate priorities for follow up. The “black” targets have already been drilled and will see no additional drilling.
Between the additional drilling needed to (hopefully) vector in on a large porphyry intrusive body at the “red” targets and the drilling still to be done to test the “green” undrilled targets, there’s plenty left to speculate on with this program.
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A Technical Team Worthy Of A Major
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In a sign of how much promise seasoned hands see in Inflection’s Northern NSW project, the company has assembled a technical team that is second to none.
Led by the aforementioned Dr. Haynes, a serially successful geologist who led the discovery of the massive Olympic Dam deposit owned by BHP, this team includes Dr. Bob Skrzeczynki and Mark Dugmore.
All three of these gentlemen’s resumes include key operational roles at mining colossus BHP, including in a stint by Dr. Haynes as its chief geoscientist.
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Among them, they have more than 110 years of experience and have participated in several large discoveries in Australia.
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No doubt their collective track record was a key reason why key sector players like Resources Capital Funds and Sprott Inc. decided to take sizeable stakes in Inflection.
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Carron:
Another Resource Hiding Under Post-Mineral Cover?
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And, as promising and high-reward as the drill program at Northern NSW has the potential to be, Inflection has a backstop in its Carron gold project in Queensland.
Carron is another project generated by Dr. Haynes’ technical team and, like Northern NSW, the project is on trend from a productive high-grade gold mining district.
As the map below indicates, Carron covers a potential extension, under post-mineral cover, of the nearby Croydon Goldfields.
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The targets at Carron include multiple high-grade gold targets over 30 kilometers of strike…and they’ve also never been drill tested. Until now.
A drill program to probe high-priority targets is underway, part of the work program needed to raise Inflection’s 50% interest in Carron to 70%.
Promising results from this program could send Inflection’s share price much higher, independent of the home-run potential at Northern NSW.
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Wager On A District-Scale Discovery…Or Two…Or Three
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With assays pending from Carron and results that will continue to stream in from follow-up and new-target drilling at Northern NSW, market-moving news could be just around the corner for Inflection Resources.
So far, the program at Northern NSW is about halfway done and already three major porphyry targets worthy of follow up have been identified.
It will take additional drilling to vector in on the buried deposits that may lie below, but make no mistake, if Inflection turns up a long interval of porphyry-style copper-gold, it will light a fire under the company’s share price.
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The market still isn’t factoring in the potential for a major discovery (or two…or three) here.
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If you want to wager on one of the exploration sector’s most ambitious drill-hole plays — backed by a team of serially successful mine finders — now is the time to build a position in Inflection Resources.
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