Rio Tinto's Kennecott starts drilling at Frisco

Cactus Breccia Pipes (Image from Alderan)

Rio Tinto's (NYSE: RIO ASX: RIO) subsidiary Kennecott has kicked off an initial four-hole 2,000m drill program at Alderan Resources' Frisco copper/gold/silver project in Utah.

Kennecott will spend an initial $6 million on exploration at the project area to gain a 55% interest in the project, it said.

Rio Tinto's subsidiary will earn 70% of the project by completing three stages which will total $30 million exploration expenditure.

Alderan said in a release that during the March 2020 quarter, Kennecott conducted field visits to assess ground conditions and determine logistics and safety requirements to support an initial drill program.

Kennecott plans an initial diamond drill program to follow up high-grade intersections at the Cactus Breccia and Accrington Skarn targets, as well as a deeper hole testing the Reciprocity IP Anomaly.