Latitude 66 Cobalt, a private, Finnish company, has reported excellent drilling results from its projects in the Kuusamo schist belt, which it believes provides "further optionality" for its proposed cobalt and gold development at the existing K Camp project.
During June to November 2022, Lat66 drill tested a newly identified target (K10) and followed up on two previously identified targets (K9 and K8) at its project area K Camp South, and a fourth project (H1) in the nearby H Camp.
Significant new cobalt and gold intersections were identified as part of the 32-hole diamond drilling program (3,335 metres) completed at the K Camp South and H Camp areas in Kuusamo, including 4.8 metres at 4.14 grams gold per tonne and 0.12% cobalt from K10, now confirmed to be a new discovery area.
Drilling results at the K8 and K9 areas also achieved significant intersections, including 10.3 metres at 4.84 grams gold and 0.04% cobalt; 9.3 metres at 4.32 grams gold and 0.03% cobalt; 13.5 metres at 6.25 grams gold and 0.18% cobalt; and 13.8 metres at 3.56 grams gold and 0.04% cobalt.
At H1, an area prospective for copper and cobalt, the following results were returned: 11.4 metres at 0.2% cobalt and 0.69% copper; and 6.2 metres at 0.29% cobalt and 0.38% copper.
Given these new drilling results, in particular within the K South Camp, Lat66 intends to undertake further drilling across numerous defined targets during the summer.
"We had set two main goals for the 2022 drill program. Firstly, to confirm the exploration potential of the Kuusamo schist belt beyond the advanced K North Camp, and secondly, to test the efficiency of our exploration process and model which we have developed with our team of experts," Lat66's managing director Thomas Hoyer stated in a media release.
"These excellent results give us strong evidence of the cobalt-gold-copper potential we have in the Kuusamo schist belt and demonstrate that our exploration model works. With these results, we today consider the K South Camp to be a significant and self-standing cobalt-gold-copper project," he added.
K Camp South is located at the southern extent of a regional K??yl??-Konttiaho-Antiformal structure in the Kuusamo schist belt, which also hosts Lat66's existing Juomasuo mineral resources (K1 to K3) of 650,000 oz. gold and 16,490 tonnes cobalt.
According to Latitude 66, this is an emerging corridor containing several historical cobalt-gold occurrences where the company has recently identified two new targets, namely K9 and K10.
Since 2017, the company has been exploring the potential of the Kuusamo schist belt, resulting in several new discoveries and a sizeable increase in the cobalt-gold mineral resource inventory. Beyond Kuusamo, it is also conducting regional exploration activities in the Per??pohja and Kainuu schist belts of Finland.
To date, the unlisted cobalt-gold miner has secured more than 1,400 sq. km of tenements within the eastern extensions of the Central Lapland greenstone belt, which hosts two of the largest mineral deposits and operating mines in Europe.