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COSMO METALS LTD (CMO) - Untapped Potential: The New England Orogen Gold Rush
Discover the untapped potential of Australia's forgotten gold districts as Cosmo Metals makes a strategic leap into New South Wales. Managing Director Ian Prentice reveals how the company's acquisition of the Bingara and Nundle projects could transform their prospects in the precious and base metals space.
The conversation takes us deep into the geological significance of these newly acquired assets, situated within the New England Orogen – a vast mineral province that has historically yielded 35 million ounces of gold but remains surprisingly underexplored. What makes this opportunity particularly compelling is the scale: with nearly 500 square kilometres at Bingara and 260 square kilometres at Nundle, these truly represent district-scale exploration plays that haven't seen modern exploration techniques applied in over three decades.
Ian's excitement is palpable as he describes the commodity mix of gold, copper, and antimony across these projects, highlighting historical drill results like six metres at six grams per tonne gold from surface that have never been properly followed up. The comparison to world-class deposits like Mount Morgan (multi-million ounces gold plus 360,000 tonnes copper) demonstrates the scale of targets Cosmo is pursuing. Through cutting-edge exploration techniques including LiDAR and Sub-Audio Magnetics surveys, the company is rapidly building a modern understanding of these forgotten mineral districts.
Andrew Musgrave Host
Welcome back to ASX Briefs, where we uncover the stories shaping Australia's resource sector. And today we're joined by Ian Prentice, the Managing Director of Cosmo Metals Limited, a company that's made a strategic leap with the acquisition of the Bingara and Nundle gold, antimony and copper projects in New South Wales. Ian, thanks for joining me today and welcome to the ASX Briefs podcast.
Ian Prentice Guest
It's a pleasure to be with you today, Andrew.
Andrew Musgrave Host
Now, Ian, for investors that may be unfamiliar with Cosmo Metals, can you just provide a brief overview of the company?
Ian Prentice Guest
Yeah, certainly Andrew. So, Cosmo is an ASX listed precious and base metals explorer. Been listed on the ASX just a little over three years, listed with a base metal asset in the gold fields of Western Australia the Yamarna base metals asset and then, I guess more recently, a bit over a year ago, a year and a half ago acquired a gold project right on the doorstep of Kalgoorlie. And then, more recently again, we've acquired some really exciting assets in New South Wales.
Andrew Musgrave Host
Okay, and Cosmo's acquisition of the Bingara and Nundle projects represents a transformational step. So, what made these assets stand out to you as a good strategic fit?
Ian Prentice Guest
Yeah. So, I think one of the things that we really liked about it was the commodity mix. So, it was a great fit for what we already had in the portfolio. So, what we see at Bingara and Nundle is some really good gold prospectivity but also some good copper plus other base metal prospectivity with a smattering of antimony as well. So really excellent commodity mix. But also, what we really liked was the technical basis, for the vendors had used to actually identify these areas and then work them up over the last seven or eight years, so they'd done a whole lot of work on a really strong technical basis to move that forward.
Andrew Musgrave Host
Okay, and you've described the projects as camp scale exploration opportunities. So, what is the exploration thesis underpinning these assets and how might they stack up against better known belts like the Lachlan Fold?
Ian Prentice Guest
Yeah, I guess, first off, the camp scale is yeah, it also refers to just the acreage we've got. So, Bingara, for example, is just under 500 square kilometres of tenure covers. You know, 30-kilometre strike of an orogenic gold antimony belt, so a fantastic opportunity there, plus around 20 kilometres of strike of a VMS system. So, you've got the really large areas. Similarly, in Nundles, around 260 square kilometres, so just really large areas, and so that sort of puts that in perspective. We've got a lot of acreage, a lot of opportunities, a lot of really interesting targets that haven't really had a decent look for the last 30 or 40 years from an exploration point of view. But stepping back, you know, I guess to answer your question, so, um, where does it stand? So, we're, we're on the. It's the western margin of the southern part of the New England Orogen.
Now I guess what we're seeing now is New England Orogen as being a really fantastic place to explore. So New England Orogen stretches from where we are in New South Wales all the way up to Townsville in Queensland, and something like 35 million ounces of gold has come out of that region over time. And so, when you talk about some of the areas in New South Wales that have got a better well-known address. I think New England Orogen is certainly coming along and will step into that space, and I think things like the Mount Morgan copper gold deposit up in Queensland that sits in this same geological package.
And then we've got the Hillgrove gold antimony project, which is only about 100 kilometres or so away from us, which is going through that phase of recommissioning and getting back into production under Larvotto's ownership. So it's a really interesting area that's got a lot of attention on at the moment and I think also for our, I guess, that technical basis, the New South Wales Geological Survey, have done a lot of work in the last decade or so in putting a bit more of a I guess a bit of a microscope on the southern New England Orogen to sort of understand a little bit more why to date none of those bigger gold deposits have been discovered, and so that's one of the things that we're really excited about. We've got that great platform to move forward, and I guess you know, really get in there and have that exploration. So, you know, we really look like, we feel like we've got a tiger by the tail there, Andrew, in that part of the world.
Andrew Musgrave Host
Okay now. The LiDAR and SAM surveys you've launched are high-resolution, tech-forward approaches, so what early insights are you getting from these datasets?
Ian Prentice Guest
Yeah, I guess again it goes back to a little bit of this we haven't had any. You know, these regions haven't had any real modern exploration for 30-odd years. The last serious drilling was done in the 1980s. These packages haven't been held in a single ASX-listed company for decades. So, our approach is very much around getting in there and doing the modern systematic exploration across the packages. So doing that first step of flying LiDAR over both of those areas gives us a really fantastic fundamental base to work from. And similarly, you know, working with the SAM survey over the Mount Everest area, you know a base metal VMS prospective target the SAM has given us a real good guide on where we can go next for our testing of that target area.
Andrew Musgrave Host
And just touching on Mount Everest and the Mona trend. So, what could success in this corridor mean in terms of scale and commodity mix?
Ian Prentice Guest
Yeah, so I guess across all the portfolio. But to answer your question and then step out from that, so Mount Everest, it's one of what we think looks like six separate VMS historic operations along that trend. There's another one, Gulf Creek, which is just to the south of us, which is owned by another company. So, there's at least seven or eight of these things.
And we know that VMSs form in clusters. We know that amongst those clusters you're going to have a larger deposit. So, we're really excited. We know that there's the mineralisations there. We've got copper dominant, a bit of zinc, a bit of gold, a bit of silver. But, as I keep on saying, it hasn't been explored. So, we're really excited about it.
We think there's going to be some good opportunities for some base metal discoveries. But then we look at the gold area at Bingara, Spring Creek, which is one of the areas that did get a bit of drilling back in the 1980s. That's something that we're going to be looking at pretty early on and we think that's got fantastic opportunity. There's results like six metres at six grams pretty well from surface that just haven't been followed up. And then stepping down to Nundle, there's a fantastic opportunity down there. Early stage hasn't been explored since the 1970s, but we're looking down there at something that we think has got a lot of the hallmarks of Mount Morgan, which I mentioned earlier. So, Mount Morgan, up in Queensland, you know, multi-million ounces of gold, 360,000 tonnes of copper, massive system. So, you know they're the sorts of targets we're looking for. Andrew. We're really focusing on wanting to, you know, identify the big, you know, sort of company-making type of projects, and we think we've got the project areas and the ingredients to move that forward.
Andrew Musgrave Host
Okay, and you've recently completed a capital raise. So how are you prioritising the capital between New South Wales and Western Australia?
Ian Prentice Guest
Yeah, I think you know, given the timing of the capital raise and the announcement of the transaction, you know it's really a beholden on us to spend the majority of that money in on our new projects in New South Wales. But we certainly are very excited about what we've got at the Kanowna Gold Project, as I say, just on the doorstep of Kalgoorlie. So, we'll be certainly allocating some capital to move that forward.
Andrew Musgrave Host
And just touching on the Kanowna Gold Project, what's the latest thinking around those targets there?
Ian Prentice Guest
Yeah. So again, I've only been in this seat for coming up to three months as the MD and a little bit longer on the board. But when I came on board to Cosmo, I really liked what we had at Kanowna. There's some really nice hits at some prospects that have been previously defined, but just the broad area it looks like it's a really big system. There's a lot of gold in there which has been tested with shallow air core drilling and then a few follow-up holes have come up with some really big numbers. But we're very, very encouraged by what we see from that really big gold system. So, I think there's some big opportunities for a significant deposit to be found there.
Andrew Musgrave Host
Okay, and finally, as we look ahead to the second half of the year, what milestones should investors be watching for, particularly around drill programs or potential resource definition?
Ian Prentice Guest
Yeah, certainly New South Wales. We're just starting exploration. We closed the deal a few weeks ago and we're on the ground now and we're moving things forward. As you mentioned, we've done the LiDAR, we've done the SAM, we're now boots on ground to actually follow some of those things up, and that's all leading towards our first campaign of drilling. So, we'll be drilling at the Spring Creek target is our expectation probably around late July, target-wise. So that's something that I think we should all be looking forward to getting on the ground, getting that drilling done, and then the flow of assays that will follow from that.
Andrew Musgrave Host
Okay, Ian. Well, thanks for your time today. It's been great to catch up and we look forward to the next updates from Cosmo Metals in the upcoming months.
Ian Prentice Guest
Awesome. Thanks very much, Andrew.
Andrew Musgrave Host
That concludes this episode of ASX Briefs. Don't forget to subscribe.