A diamond drill program is underway at the Canobie copper project, being advanced by Strategic Energy Resources in a joint venture with Fortescue.

The program will see more than 1500m drilled at a new coincident magnetic and gravity anomaly, Alcala Prospect, and at Charcoal Bore.

Drilling last year at Charcoal Bore, targeting the peak of a magnetic body, intersected elevated copper and gold.

The work at Canobie in North-West Queensland is the first of three back-to-back high-impact drill programs planned across the Strategic Energy Resources (ASX: SER) portfolio in the coming months, according to managing director David DeTata.

“The drill program is scheduled to take three to four weeks to complete, with assays available approximately six weeks post- drilling,” he said.

“The drill rig will then immediately mobilise to the Bulimba Gold Project to complete a single diamond hole as part of our joint venture with Sumitomo.

“The rig will then mobilise to our 100 per cent-owned Diamantina Copper-Gold Project to complete a two-hole program in search of extensions to previously intersected mineralisation at the Elizabeth Springs Prospect.”

At Canobie, SER and Fortescue are targeting Iron Oxide Copper Gold (IOCG) mineralisation west of a crustal-scale fault system associated with significant copper-gold deposits including the Ernest Henry, Mount Margaret (E1), Eloise and Roseby deposits.