Pegasus Metals Limited is pleased to advise that its McLarty Range Copper Project sits outside the boundary of the WA Government’s proposed Class A national park in the Kimberley region and therefore will not be affected by the plan. The proposed park, which includes Horizontal Falls at Talbot Bay, comprises the area set aside by the WA Government when it created a Mining Act Section 19 Exemption Area over the Horizontal Falls in December last year.

The proposed park also includes areas that are not the subject of granted Exploration Licences. The tenements which form part of the McLarty Range project include one granted Exploration Licence and an Exploration Licence Application that falls outside and to the east of the proposed area of the Class A national park. As Pegasus announced to the ASX on December 10, 2012, this Exemption Area did not affect in any way the granted tenure or access to the Bowerbird and Copper Cliff/Main Syncline prospect areas that have been the focus of Pegasus’ exploration as part of its McLarty Range Project. Moreover, Pegasus and its McLarty Range Project partner Kimminco Pty Ltd assisted the WA Government with this Exemption Area by relinquishing an ELA (E04/2001) and two blocks of a granted exploration licence (E04/1441).

Pegasus had already declared these areas to be part of a “self-imposed buffer zone” adjacent to the Horizontal Falls. Pegasus Director Michael Fotios said the proposed national park would have no impact on future exploration at McLarty Range. “Pegasus has already declared the area subject to the proposed national park as a “self-imposed buffer zone” as part of its policy to protect the Horizontal Falls site nearby,” Mr Fotios said. The McLarty Range Copper Project is located some 250km north-east of Broome. It covers a portion of the folded Proterozoic-aged Kimberley Basin. Of particular interest to Pegasus is a prospective copper-bearing, meta-sedimentary horizon that has been identified and sampled by previous explorers. Drilling conducted by Pegasus at the Bowerbird prospect has intersected primary copper sulphide mineralisation beneath surface gossans anomalous in copper.

McLarty Range exploration campaign

Future exploration at McLarty Range will include airborne magnetic/radiometric and VTEM surveys aimed at further understanding the geology and controls on the copper mineralisation. These programs will also help to better define drill targets beneath the surface gossans that have been mapped and sampled to date. Diamond drill testing of targets will follow these surveys with the initial focus on determining the presence of primary copper mineralisation at Copper Cliff in the main syncline area on the east side of the project. Field activities are expected to commence in the June Quarter of this year after the end of the wet season, subject to any regulatory approvals required.