PEAK ASSET: MORNING WRAP 24 February: ASX 200 futures are pointing up 27 points or 0.3 per cent to 9004 | Copper falls as US tariffs raise demand uncertainty | Litchfield Minerals eyes hot targets in North Australian Craton |

Litchfield Minerals eyes hot targets in North Australian Craton

• With six projects spanning an under-explored ~3200km2 in the proven North Australian Craton, Litchfield Minerals is targeting some of the world’s hottest metals
• The junior has joined BHP’s Xplor accelerator program, which provides expertise and a US$500,000 grant as Litchfield chases scale at the Oonagalabi copper-zinc-silver-gold project 
• Drilling at Oonagalabi has returned broad copper and zinc hits, and mineralisation is open along strike and at depth, as LMS prepares to vector towards high-priority targets 

Special Report: With six projects across more than 3200km of under-explored ground, Litchfield Minerals has been winning over both investor and blue-chip attention thanks to its exploration success and tight operations led by a highly credentialled team.

Litchfield (ASX:LMS) has just joined BHP’s (ASX:BHP) highly sought-after Xplor Program, one of only 10 participants. 

That followed results from the junior’s flagship Oonagalabi copper-zinc-silver-gold project in October that revealed its scale potential and led to a sustained ~5x boost to the share price. 

Tough but world-class terrain

Litchfield’s ground is in the North Australian Craton, which hosts world-class deposits including Newmont Corporation’s (ASX:NEM) Tanami gold mine and Arafura Rare Earths’ (ASX:ARU) Nolans rare earths project.

But large swathes of the territory remain only lightly tested by the drill bit and Litchfield believes each of its six projects contains at least one greenfield target yet to be discovered. 

Prospective commodities across its tenements include copper, gold, silver, uranium, rare earths, tungsten, vanadium, phosphate and garnet.

Oonagalabi in the Arunta region is currently the main game. It sits about 120km northeast of Alice Springs and was picked up for a bargain basement price of about $200,000. Oonagalabi lies in a belt that hosts major deposits including KGL Resources’ (ASX:KGL) Jervois Copper Project just 150km to the east-northeast.

Oonagalabi – and LMS’ nearby Paradise Well project – are directly adjacent to the boundary between the Irindina and Aileron Provinces. This is a deep crustal structure like those often associated with major mineral deposits, including iron oxide copper-gold systems that host some of Australia’s tier-one orebodies such as BHP’s Olympic Dam.

Litchfield managing director Matthew Pustahya said the company’s exploration strategy was designed to “fail fast or succeed quickly” at opportunities that may have been looked over, while maintaining the lean operations that impressed BHP in its Xplor Program selection process.

He said the mining giant noticed what LMS had achieved in a “super challenging”, hot and elevated environment northeast of Alice Springs. “It definitely takes a certain type of team to do that work,” Pustahya said.

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Source: Stockhead