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ABM Resources
Unlocking the Potential of Australia's Final Frontier
The Tanami-Arunta region of Australia’s Northern Territory is a relatively under-explored locale. Today, it’s a region full of promise. And as Darren Holden, Managing Director at tier one gold and gold-copper junior, ABM Resources, of Nedlands Western Australia, says, “The final frontier for Australian gold.”
ABM has put together a hefty land package of quality assets, and quickly. Holden says that doing this so swiftly is really not possible these days in more established mining hubs such as Western Australia, New South Wales or Queensland. He recalls what initially attracted him to the company and the projects it holds today, observing that few new discoveries were really being opened up, so Holden and his colleagues set about doing something a little different from the majority.
“I was looking around the Australian gold sector and not seeing a lot of good grassroots exploration going on,” he says. “In my view, there are two significant gold discoveries in the last few years in the junior sector of Australia—Tropicana and McPhillamys—both have a major company now involved. I wanted to get involved with a company that wanted to test a large number of targets and make the next round of discoveries.”
Drawing on years spent working in Alaska and Canada, amongst other locations, Holden says that this has taken place successfully in the Canadian markets, but few were doing the work in Australia. That is, until now.
Project outline
Before we explore the company portfolio, most notably Twin Bonanza, ABM’s multi-prospect principle project, there are a couple of things to know about the land package. Not only is ABM the largest landholder in Tanami-Arunta, it is Australia’s largest landholder for junior gold exploration: the biggest exploration license landholder. A key aspect of this is the multiple targets the company has taken on.
“That’s important. We’re out looking for big discoveries and we’re not going to be distracted by a few hundred-thousand ounces, we really want a big one,” Holden stresses. “A lot of junior companies will get a few hundred-thousand ounces then spend years digging holes and bury themselves in them by trying to bring it into production.”
ABM currently houses eight early stage discoveries where more than one section of drilling has shown ore grade, offering an extent of a system, and the next step is identifying just how big these are.
“These fall in four camps and we’ve been looking at the areas that have clusters of targets together. It shows the size potential of the system, including the porphyry-related system which is really unusual for this area,” Holden says. “We’ll have to drill more holes deeper than previous explorers so it’s a more risky end of exploration, but it’s one that will return rewards as we turn over the targets.”
Again drawing on the worldly team experience, Holden says that the Birimian region of West Africa bears great geological similarity to Tanami-Arunta, however the latter is far more under-explored and lucrative as a result.
“They’re about the same scale, about the same age, the same style of mineralisation,” he explains. “The Tanami Arunta region has only really seen exploration in the shallow oxide areas. People haven’t really looked deep apart from Newmont’s Callie deposit, which was a very weak gold anomaly at surface and a world-class system underneath.”
This makes ABM’s seemingly insurmountable land package all the more attractive. “You could essentially fit about the entirety of Great Britain inside this map in our landholding’s there, so it’s a pretty substantial area,” Holden says.
Within this there are four camps:
• The Stafford Gold Zone which houses two discoveries and four other prospects that need further work
• Kroda which includes Kroda 3 and several other prospects around it, explored with a multi-pronged approach
• Hyperion, containing two discoveries and four prospects
• Twin Bonanza, housing three discoveries and six prospects pending further work
Taking on Twin Bonanza
As ABM’s flagship, the history of the Twin Bonanza Porphyry Gold Project stems from high-grade veins recognised by former owners, North Flinders Mines NL who uncovered some broad anomalies.
“They were taken over by Normandy in 1997, then Newmont took over Normandy, and it was the Newmont geologists who started to recognise the bulk tonnage potential here,” Holden says. “They did some drilling in 2004 that opened up the Buccaneer Zone a little bit, and in 2005 they had a target to get this zone to around 3.2 to 3.7 million ounces.”
Of course, this was a very different time for mining, and due to the gold price, their exploration budgets were pulled and redirected to focus on their mine some 100 kilometres away from this one.
“That 2005 programme never went ahead and they haven’t really worked on it since then. We just purchased it from Newmont and I couldn’t really find anybody at that company to tell me much about the project,” Holden explains.
“I had to track down the geologist who worked on it in 2004 to find out more about it. He concurred with me that we’re looking at a potentially sizeable system. We don’t know what it’s going to be until we drill it out, but we’re certainly looking at a chunky system for sure.”
Holden says that this is a very large gold anomaly measuring three kilometres by 1.6 kilometres and less than 15 per cent of it has been tested with RC/diamond drilling.
“At the Buccaneer Project, nearly every hole is mineralised with grades generally increasing down-hole. It’s a porphyry system—intrusive-related gold system—very unusual for this area,” he continues.
“This is more like something you’d see in Alaska or South America. It’s open in just about every direction and it just needs substantially more work to understand its extents.” Buccaneer continues to show promise in its surrounding, with the TB Hornfels Zone located just to the North West. At this zone, only one hole has been drilled to date, but it has already returned very high grades. Also nearby is a zone known as Old Pirate.
“Again this is located quite close to Buccaneer, only a few kilometres away and this has only been drilled systematically to about 40 metres below surface. In that 40 metres we’re seeing considerable high grade mineralisation,” Holden says. “Hyperion, located to the north-east of Twin Bonanza, again is a cluster of targets, two of which have ore-grade intersections at this stage.”
ABM has recently commenced drilling at the Stafford Gold Zone. Holden says that the incentive behind this move was the significant system located there, and the area’s ease of access. “We’ve employed a new team for this area. I intentionally chose geologists who’ve never worked in this area before because I didn’t want them to be biased by previous dogma,” he explains.
“They’re all enthusiastic and they all want to get out in the field, knowing that this programme will iron out logistical issues.” The remaining area, Kroda 3, is where exploration took place under Newmont. It might not be the easiest place to explore, but to date the grades received more than warrant ongoing activity there. ABM has a lot of work cut out within its landholding here, but as Holden explains, that is all part of the bigger picture in terms of the company’s strategic approach.
The ABM way
As Holden says, “you need to have a good pipeline of projects because we all know that occasionally good projects go bad.” ABM has exactly that, and following the new board appointed in November 2009, and subsequent deals with Newmont and Tanami Gold NL, its suite of assets is looking more promising than ever before.
“In order to return value to your shareholders you need to turn over lots of targets. It’s not how much you spend on a target, but how little,” Holden states.
“We believe that any junior exploration company can stay focused on a maximum of 20 targets a year. If you have 100 targets to test—because you’re dealing with a one in 100 chance—you’d better be around for five years.”
By approaching its targets using drill holes that will check the respective systems of the targets, ABM safely and expertly assesses its landholding. The company has taken smart steps to keep diverse, multi-project orientated and yet still selective about the assets it chooses to pursue. There is a lot to be gained for other junior explorers here and likely a great deal more to come.
www.abmresources.com.au
The Tanami-Arunta region of Australia’s Northern Territory is a relatively under-explored locale. Today, it’s a region full of promise. And as Darren Holden, Managing Director at tier one gold and gold-copper junior, ABM Resources, of Nedlands Western Australia, says, “The final frontier for Australian gold.”
ABM has put together a hefty land package of quality assets, and quickly. Holden says that doing this so swiftly is really not possible these days in more established mining hubs such as Western Australia, New South Wales or Queensland. He recalls what initially attracted him to the company and the projects it holds today, observing that few new discoveries were really being opened up, so Holden and his colleagues set about doing something a little different from the majority.
“I was looking around the Australian gold sector and not seeing a lot of good grassroots exploration going on,” he says. “In my view, there are two significant gold discoveries in the last few years in the junior sector of Australia—Tropicana and McPhillamys—both have a major company now involved. I wanted to get involved with a company that wanted to test a large number of targets and make the next round of discoveries.”
Drawing on years spent working in Alaska and Canada, amongst other locations, Holden says that this has taken place successfully in the Canadian markets, but few were doing the work in Australia. That is, until now.
Project outline
Before we explore the company portfolio, most notably Twin Bonanza, ABM’s multi-prospect principle project, there are a couple of things to know about the land package. Not only is ABM the largest landholder in Tanami-Arunta, it is Australia’s largest landholder for junior gold exploration: the biggest exploration license landholder. A key aspect of this is the multiple targets the company has taken on.
“That’s important. We’re out looking for big discoveries and we’re not going to be distracted by a few hundred-thousand ounces, we really want a big one,” Holden stresses. “A lot of junior companies will get a few hundred-thousand ounces then spend years digging holes and bury themselves in them by trying to bring it into production.”
ABM currently houses eight early stage discoveries where more than one section of drilling has shown ore grade, offering an extent of a system, and the next step is identifying just how big these are.
“These fall in four camps and we’ve been looking at the areas that have clusters of targets together. It shows the size potential of the system, including the porphyry-related system which is really unusual for this area,” Holden says. “We’ll have to drill more holes deeper than previous explorers so it’s a more risky end of exploration, but it’s one that will return rewards as we turn over the targets.”
Again drawing on the worldly team experience, Holden says that the Birimian region of West Africa bears great geological similarity to Tanami-Arunta, however the latter is far more under-explored and lucrative as a result.
“They’re about the same scale, about the same age, the same style of mineralisation,” he explains. “The Tanami Arunta region has only really seen exploration in the shallow oxide areas. People haven’t really looked deep apart from Newmont’s Callie deposit, which was a very weak gold anomaly at surface and a world-class system underneath.”
This makes ABM’s seemingly insurmountable land package all the more attractive. “You could essentially fit about the entirety of Great Britain inside this map in our landholding’s there, so it’s a pretty substantial area,” Holden says.
Within this there are four camps:
• The Stafford Gold Zone which houses two discoveries and four other prospects that need further work
• Kroda which includes Kroda 3 and several other prospects around it, explored with a multi-pronged approach
• Hyperion, containing two discoveries and four prospects
• Twin Bonanza, housing three discoveries and six prospects pending further work
Taking on Twin Bonanza
As ABM’s flagship, the history of the Twin Bonanza Porphyry Gold Project stems from high-grade veins recognised by former owners, North Flinders Mines NL who uncovered some broad anomalies.
“They were taken over by Normandy in 1997, then Newmont took over Normandy, and it was the Newmont geologists who started to recognise the bulk tonnage potential here,” Holden says. “They did some drilling in 2004 that opened up the Buccaneer Zone a little bit, and in 2005 they had a target to get this zone to around 3.2 to 3.7 million ounces.”
Of course, this was a very different time for mining, and due to the gold price, their exploration budgets were pulled and redirected to focus on their mine some 100 kilometres away from this one.
“That 2005 programme never went ahead and they haven’t really worked on it since then. We just purchased it from Newmont and I couldn’t really find anybody at that company to tell me much about the project,” Holden explains.
“I had to track down the geologist who worked on it in 2004 to find out more about it. He concurred with me that we’re looking at a potentially sizeable system. We don’t know what it’s going to be until we drill it out, but we’re certainly looking at a chunky system for sure.”
Holden says that this is a very large gold anomaly measuring three kilometres by 1.6 kilometres and less than 15 per cent of it has been tested with RC/diamond drilling.
“At the Buccaneer Project, nearly every hole is mineralised with grades generally increasing down-hole. It’s a porphyry system—intrusive-related gold system—very unusual for this area,” he continues.
“This is more like something you’d see in Alaska or South America. It’s open in just about every direction and it just needs substantially more work to understand its extents.” Buccaneer continues to show promise in its surrounding, with the TB Hornfels Zone located just to the North West. At this zone, only one hole has been drilled to date, but it has already returned very high grades. Also nearby is a zone known as Old Pirate.
“Again this is located quite close to Buccaneer, only a few kilometres away and this has only been drilled systematically to about 40 metres below surface. In that 40 metres we’re seeing considerable high grade mineralisation,” Holden says. “Hyperion, located to the north-east of Twin Bonanza, again is a cluster of targets, two of which have ore-grade intersections at this stage.”
ABM has recently commenced drilling at the Stafford Gold Zone. Holden says that the incentive behind this move was the significant system located there, and the area’s ease of access. “We’ve employed a new team for this area. I intentionally chose geologists who’ve never worked in this area before because I didn’t want them to be biased by previous dogma,” he explains.
“They’re all enthusiastic and they all want to get out in the field, knowing that this programme will iron out logistical issues.” The remaining area, Kroda 3, is where exploration took place under Newmont. It might not be the easiest place to explore, but to date the grades received more than warrant ongoing activity there. ABM has a lot of work cut out within its landholding here, but as Holden explains, that is all part of the bigger picture in terms of the company’s strategic approach.
The ABM way
As Holden says, “you need to have a good pipeline of projects because we all know that occasionally good projects go bad.” ABM has exactly that, and following the new board appointed in November 2009, and subsequent deals with Newmont and Tanami Gold NL, its suite of assets is looking more promising than ever before.
“In order to return value to your shareholders you need to turn over lots of targets. It’s not how much you spend on a target, but how little,” Holden states.
“We believe that any junior exploration company can stay focused on a maximum of 20 targets a year. If you have 100 targets to test—because you’re dealing with a one in 100 chance—you’d better be around for five years.”
By approaching its targets using drill holes that will check the respective systems of the targets, ABM safely and expertly assesses its landholding. The company has taken smart steps to keep diverse, multi-project orientated and yet still selective about the assets it chooses to pursue. There is a lot to be gained for other junior explorers here and likely a great deal more to come.
www.abmresources.com.au
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