Peter Hwang, Managing Director of copper exploration specialist Superior Resources, discusses the latest news from the company, as well as updates from its flagship Greenvale Project.
Superior Resources Limited is an ASX-listed copper exploration company with a portfolio of projects located in Queensland, Australia.
Although copper is the predominant focus of the company, its portfolio also comprises large Mt Isa-style and McArthur River-style zinc-lead-silver projects in the Carpentaria Zinc Belt, which is the world’s largest zinc-lead province.
The company’s substantial land holding has been incrementally growing for over a decade, resulting in a first-class mineral exploration portfolio.
The company has three key projects within its portfolio. Its 100% owned flagship project, Greenvale, spans the northern-most extension of the Ordovician Macquarie Arc – the Lucky Creek Corridor. The project covers a region of volcanic and intrusive rocks of Ordovician age that are similar in type and age to the Ordovician porphyry copper belt in New South Wales, which hosts the large Cadia and North Parkes porphyry copper and gold mines.
The company also owns the Nicholson Project, which is a Tier 1-potential lead-zinc exploration project located within the Carpentaria Zinc Province, north-west Queensland. The Carpentaria Zinc Province, which extends from Mount Isa in north-west Queensland to McArthur River in the Northern Territory, is host to major production centres of copper, lead, zinc, and silver.
In addition, Superior Resources also owns the Victor Project, which comprises four mineral exploration permits covering a total area of 438 sq km. This Tier-1-potential, lead-zinc exploration project is located within the Carpentaria Zinc Province in north-west Queensland and is considered an industry-leading opportunity to discover a world-class, Mount Isa-style zinc-lead-silver-copper deposit.
To learn more about the company and its recent projects, The Innovation Platform spoke to Peter Hwang, Managing Director of Superior Resources.
Can you explain more about your background in mineral exploration and the company?
I am an exploration geologist, as well as a mining and commercial lawyer, with extensive experience in both professions (over 15 years in each). I began my career as a mineral exploration geologist, exploring gold, diamonds, and base metals in most states of Australia and in Venezuela and Brazil, before completing a law degree.
As a lawyer, I specialised in mining, native title, and also advised in mergers and acquisitions (M&A) and commercial law at Australia’s top-tier (magic circle equivalent) law firms, advising a range of clients, including the major mining and petroleum companies. I moved full time into my current role at Superior about nine years ago.
What have been the major updates from the company’s flagship Greenvale Project?
Currently, the majority of the company’s mineral exploration efforts are at the Greenvale Project.
With its recent exploration work at Greenvale, the company has come to the realisation that a dominant, over 50km corridor of anomalous copper occurrences is actually a copper-gold-molybdenum porphyry belt developed within a preserved ancient island arc system, similar to some parts of the Andes in South America. This newly recognised porphyry province hosts numerous regularly-spaced porphyry and potential porphyry prospects.
Superior commenced its copper-gold porphyry focus in earnest at the southern end of this province, at the Bottletree Prospect, in 2020.
At Bottletree, we have identified extensive porphyry-grade copper mineralisation from surface to at least 850m deep, and we are targeting the potassic altered core of the system with a Phase 2 drilling programme planned for the current quarter. The system at Bottletree is very large, with a porphyry alteration system that has been identified over a distance of at least 1km so far, and a copper geochemical signature of almost 2 x 2km.
We have also just commenced a maiden drilling programme at the company’s second and most advanced porphyry, called Cockie Creek, located about 15km to the north of Bottletree. Cockie Creek already hosts an historic copper Mineral Resource that we are currently drilling with the aim of significantly expanding the Resource and upgrading it to a modern JORC (2012) classification.
The exciting aspect of this prospect is that, immediately below the historic Resource, lies a large and intense induced polarisation chargeability anomaly. This anomaly potentially represents the location of a mineralised porphyry system.
The chargeability anomaly is the primary target of the current drilling campaign.
Separately, we are also conducting field work at a third porphyry prospect, Wyandotte, to bring that prospect to drilling stage. We plan to drill Wyandotte towards the end of the current drilling programmes.
With several other porphyry targets located within the Greenvale Porphyry Province, we have a very substantial pipeline of world-class copper exploration opportunities ahead of us.
However, that is not the end of the story for Greenvale. We have also recently recognised an equally significant major nickel province juxtaposed against the Greenvale Porphyry Province. This is a province of nickel-copper-PGE (platinum group elements) magmatic sulphide mineral systems that is geologically completely unrelated to the porphyry province.
The magmatic systems developed at a much deeper crustal level, at greater than 20km deep, and have since been thrust up to today’s surface levels and compressed against the porphyry belt.
The presence of Ni-Cu-PGE mineralisation has been largely proven both academically and from very minimal rock and drill core samples. We have identified at least 40 potential magmatic intrusions with almost all of the intrusions remaining untested by drilling or any other form of exploration.
To cap the renewables story off, a 100% renewable energy powerline is currently being constructed and will traverse across the centre of the Greenvale Project area.
What stage is the Greenvale Project currently in?
The Greenvale Project comprises numerous mineral deposits and Tier-1 exploration targets in both copper and nickel.
The prospects are essentially at early to advanced exploration stages.
Greenvale also holds a gold project, Steam Engine, that is progressing towards the feasibility stage with significant potential to grow in resource size.
Have you faced any particular challenges in your projects and, if so, how have you overcome these?
The projects themselves have been smooth sailing, and we have had a dream run so far with the results of our drilling and other exploration efforts.
The biggest challenge is within the equity market, which does not fully understand porphyries and the exploration for porphyries. Along with our peers, the ASX market has seen a significant retraction together with an active June sell-off and, as a result, we believe we are undervalued.
Our strategy to tackle this is to accelerate the rate of mineral exploration systematically across our two provinces at Greenvale. Our activities are a perfect example of what necessarily must ramp up in the exploration sector globally, if the developed world stands any chance of achieving its net-zero carbon ambitions.
What is next for Superior Resources?
There will be several exciting updates to our Greenvale Project in the near future. We are currently preparing for the commencement of drilling on two new additional porphyry prospects, as well as progress towards the development of the company’s Steam Engine Gold Deposit. We are also planning copper resource definition drilling and upgrading of the copper Mineral Resource at Cockie Creek.
Additionally, we will commence drilling towards the core of the large Bottletree copper-mineralised system and aim to provide some news on the nickel front as well.
Please note, this article will also appear in the fifteenth edition of our quarterly publication.
