Encounter regains ownership over Yeneena

Encounter Resources has reclaimed full ownership over its Yeneena copper project in the highly prospective Paterson Province of Western Australia.

This follows the withdrawal of IGO from the Yeneena joint venture. Encounter plans to re-engage directly with the project’s promising copper prospects, backed by an extensive dataset accumulated from six years of exploration funded by IGO.

“The return of the Yeneena copper project comes at a time of strong demand for Tier 1 copper opportunities,” Encounter executive chairman Will Robinson said.

“With renewed control, we’re evaluating the high-quality data generated under the farm-in, with plans to advance exploration at the high-grade BM1 copper zone and targets defined at BM5.”

Yeneena is a large-scale copper-cobalt project spanning more than 1450km², located 60km southwest of Greatland Gold’s Telfer copper-gold mine.

Yeneena sits in a world-class mineral district that includes Greatland’s Havieron gold-copper deposit, Rio Tinto’s Winu copper-gold project and Antipa Minerals’ Minyari Dome gold-copper-silver-cobalt project.

Over a six-year farm-in agreement, IGO invested $15 million in exploration activities, including diamond and aircore drilling and regional-scale geological, and geophysical surveys.

These activities generated significant geological, geochemical, and geophysical data, which Encounter will now assess to refine its next phase of exploration.

Drilling highlights from Yeneena’s BM1 prospect include:

• 20m at 2.0 per cent copper (Cu) from 22m, including 12m at 3.2 per cent Cu (EPT 476)
• 10m at 6.8 per cent Cu from 32m, including 2.8m at 12.3 per cent Cu (EPT 751)
• 18m at 3.2 per cent Cu from 32m, including 9m at 6.0 per cent Cu (EPT 2060)

These high-grade, near-surface intersections point to potential depth extensions into primary sulphide zones, which Encounter plans to drill test.

The company will also re-evaluate the BM1 copper oxide zone using updated geological models for sediment-hosted copper systems.

“While Yeneena presents compelling copper upside, our West Arunta niobium project remains a core strategic priority, reflecting the strength and balance of Encounter’s project portfolio,” Robinson said.

“We thank the IGO team for their collaborative and professional contribution over the past six years.”