Cobra Resources (LSE:COBR) - Two New Zones Widen Manna Hill Copper Footprint in South Australia

Rupert Verco (0:00)

Hello, I'm Rupert Verco, CEO and Managing Director of Cobra Resources PLC, and we are advancing two assets in South Australia, In situ recovery rare rose, and a shallow scalable copper occurrence in the copper capital of Australia. And I'm excited to be talking to Matt today about the results that we're eagerly anticipating. How are you, Matt?

Matt (0:27)

Not too bad, sir. Not too bad at all. And like I saw the press release today, Rupert, I'm sort of keen to break it down and understand a little bit, because I'm making sure I'm interpreting it properly. I mean, in terms of the geological interpretation of the program, what exactly have you confirmed with this?

Rupert Verco (0:43)

Yeah, sure. Well, I think that we're still waiting for assays, but based on visual and PXRF, Matt, what the indications are showing is we're very much delivering what we set out to test, and that's scale. Shallow copper, advancing and supporting what we've already defined at Blue Rose, where we're effectively initially had 1.6 kilometers of strike of mineralization, and mineralization down to depths of 300 meters. Now, we've stepped out, we've added an extra 600 meters of strikes, so Blue Rose now sits at 2.2 kilometers of extended mineralization.

And we've made 2 further discoveries of new scarns. So one of them in particular, Shadow Rose, looks to be nice and thick and very shallow. So some great metrics from which we hope to build up a valuable resource.

Matt (1:47)

I'm going to get into the detail, I really am, but maybe it's incumbent on me to say, look, can you set this up in terms of remind me, remind the folks listening and watching this.

What exactly are you setting out to try to do here with Blue Rose? What's the opportunity and how do you chase that?

Rupert Verco (2:06)

The opportunity in the board of Cobra is quite clear that we believe we have a project that could deliver in excess of a million tons of contained copper. And we believe on the physical metrics of the mineralization being shallow, for low open-cut strip ratios and relatively high-grade, we're regularly intersecting broad zones of over 1 per cent, that a project of this magnitude and with multiple targets can deliver a very valuable asset with an MPV and a high internal rate of return that is well-valued in the market. And as you know, Matt, there aren't a lot of great copper projects out there in the Marthens.

Matt (2:54)

There are not. We did some analysis earlier in the week. It's quite frightening how little is kind of coming through to the lack of investment over the past few years, but we'll talk about that another day. Okay, so we know what you're chasing. Let's get back into the detail of today's release. Obviously, Blue Rose now, as you say, extends 2.2 kilometers. How much of that strike has actually been drilled and what's the step up that you're going with?

Rupert Verco (3:24)

So the results, we're still drilling. We've drilled 23 holes to date and we've got 30 odd more to go. So we've got a lot more step out and infill drilling in between the existing mineralization and the holes that we've discussed today.

So look, hopefully, Martin, that makes a lot more results and a lot more broad and thick mineralization. So look, we haven't closed this thing off yet. There's more scale to add. There's more drilling to do on these newly discovered signs. But it's starting to look like a hugely exciting and scalable asset with plenty of upside.

Matt (4:08)

But if you're looking at it, you're talking about this kind of 600-meter Western extension, are you seeing the same host rock? Are you seeing the same alteration, the same carbon mineralization? I mean, is this...

Yeah, we are. You are? Okay.

Rupert Verco (4:25)

So why have we targeted some of these signs? Well, we did a lot of geophysical work last year, Matt, that I think we've spoken about. And one of those outcomes was a test or an evaluation of changes in rock density, which we call a gravity edge anomaly. And that anomaly has a high that correlates really well with the non-mineralized scarn. And so we've effectively chased that east. We've identified a northern limb, which is a northern fold. And the results today really confirm that interpretation.

And then the shadow zone discovery doesn't quite conform to that geophysics. But from boots on the ground, mapping through creep outcrops and some minor anomalism in some of the reanalysis work we've done, we've managed to identify another repeat in the stratigraphic sequence of this carxilicate unit. And it over-sits what we believe and we're fairly convinced is a large porphyry system.