お知らせ • Feb 07
Matsa Resources Limited Recommences Active Exploration in Thailand
Matsa Resources Limited recommenced active exploration in Thailand. Alongside the Company's active exploration at its flagship Lake Carey Gold Project, Matsa has applied for 65 new Special Prospecting Licence Applications (SPLAs) for 942km2 in key granite/pegmatite belts. The SPLAs cover ground known by Thailand's Department of Minerals and Resources to host lithium occurrences. Matsa has a fully functional office, staff and skills in the country and is well positioned to actively grow its portfolio. Matsa is ramping up its activities in Thailand because there have been a number of significant recent developments which strongly encourage mineral exploration. Prior to these new applications, the company discovered and explored a number of significant copper targets (Siam 1, Siam 2 and Chang 1 projects) prior to scaling back activities in 2016 5 due to low political support for mining and exploration activities. These projects have all been retained under SPLA/EPLAs due to their strong potential. Matsa will build upon past exploration in the country and seek to establish a strategic landholding targeting lithium, copper, lead, zinc, silver and gold in Thailand's rich metalliferous and geological setting. Matsa's new 65 SPLAs are located in western Thailand with almost half (433km2) in the Phang Nga province, which hosts PAM's flagship lithium project of Reung Kiet. The area is the most prolific tin district in Thailand whose granite composition is considered fertile for lithium. In historic literature6, the pegmatite at Khao Po has been reported as the "largest unzoned lepidolite (lithium mica) pegmatite in the world". The literature suggests "these bodies and the numerous other parallel lepidolite pegmatites trend about 218-220o parallel to the Phangnga Fault zone and dips generally to the south east". As such, this pegmatite swarm is expected to trend into Matsa's tenements to the southwest and provides high priority exploration opportunities to identify and sample potential lithium occurrences very early in the exploration program. Lithium exploration is in its infancy in Thailand and it is clear there is an untapped opportunity to explore and potentially identify the preferred "zoned pegmatite" that are expected to host the higher lithium grades as the geological setting moves away from the pegmatite/granite core to the margins of the intrusive system. Matsa believes the licences contain all the right ingredients to make a discovery. Exploration programs will initially focus on the Phang Nga province adjacent to Reung Kiet and later expanding to other tenement regions to identify and sample these reported lithium bearing pegmatites with a view to defining the more favourable zoned pegmatites. These zoned pegmatites can host higher grade lithium minerals such as spodumene. Ultimately the aim is to develop drill ready targets as soon as practicable. The work will include: a program of systematic geological mapping, rock chip sampling and stream sediment orientations, prioritise prospective granite contacts and margins, zoned and unzoned pegmatites and areas of historically recorded lithium occurrences, design appropriate drilling programs, obtain and progress drilling approvals to enable drilling operations, drill test priority targets, assess results and determine next steps. Matsa also has a number of advanced and early stage base metals projects centred on the regionally extensive Loei Fold Belt (LFB) of central Thailand which hosts Kingsgate's Chatree Gold Mine, Phu Lon Copper-gold mine in northern Thailand (Figure 4), and PanAust's Phu Kham copper-gold mine. Matsa's Bangkok based team explored for iron ore and base metals between 2010 and 2016. Matsa recognised that despite the highly prospective geology (at the time Chatree was amongst the lowest cost gold mines in the world), very high quality of available geological data, excellent infrastructure and a skilled workforce, the country remained largely under-explored. Exploration by VMS at Thali, discovered a number of strong silver in soil anomalies defined by values exceeding 0.3 g/t Ag with individual anomalies >2km long and with surface rock grab samples up to 1860g/t Ag and 27% Pb. Mineralisation, which is poorly exposed, appears to be related to stockwo k veins in strongly altered granite and limestone. Induced Polarisation (IP) surveys carried out by VMS at Thali during early 2018, returned a number of targets associated with key soil anomalies 8. At the existing Chang 1 copper project, the company has previously identified a copper mineralised diorite intrusion, under shallow transported cover with minimal outcrop. The surface expression of mineralisation is a soil copper geochemical anomaly 1.8km x 1.2km in extent. Past geophysical (IP) surveys conducted by Matsa confirm the size and distribution of the soil anomaly and highlight additional targets yet to be explored mineralised system. At the existing Siam Copper project, previous follow up of stream sediment copper anomalism led to discovery by Matsa of a number of areas of significant copper anomalism with initial follow-up focused on two targets, namely Siam 1 and Siam 2 11. Siam 1 comprises a ~20km2 stream sediment anomaly in an area of mostly soil cover containing scattered boulders of altered basalt containing disseminated native copper mineralisation. Initial follow up led to discovery of a discordant NW trending sulphide vein dominated by chalcocite which returned an assay of 54.7% Cu and 148 g/t Ag. Soil sampling and a ground IP survey were carried out to define targets for drilling. A total of 11 diamond drill holes were completed by Matsa which returned a number of broad intersections of anomalous copper (eg 22m @ 0.55% Cu) and demonstrates the potential size of the mineralised zone. Again, Matsa discontinued exploration prior to completing drilling to await legislative changes to allow access to key drill areas. Siam 2 is located 15km W of Siam 1 and comprises 4 main targets within a 9km long copper anomaly in an area of poorly outcropping andesite volcanics and limestone. The highest priority Siam 2N target has been defined as two discrete high grade skarn copper targets up to 500m wide along the contact between a diorite intrusive and limestone, with soil values up to 0.25% Cu and rock chip values to 2.1% Cu. The anomalous copper is associated with a strong magnetic anomaly which taken together with the presence of garnet, magnetite and secondary copper minerals in rock chip samples is interpreted as a mineralised skarn deposit. As with Matsa's other targets, drilling was not carried out pending legislation to allow access.
