Clancy Exploration Limited acquired its “Spring Creek licence” in March 2006 and earlier this year acted on it.

A hole, measuring between 300 and 400 metres, was drilled to determine if early modelling of underground rock was accurate.

The company’s managing director Mark Stewart reported the exercise had sent it back to the drawing board for a “smarter” approach.

Initial work had suggested that underground rocks in the targeted area were shallow compared with “further north where the basin gets quite deep,” he said.

However the one and only hole drilled on the site to date told a different story.

“The rocks did still seem to be quite deep,” Mr Stewart said.

“We didn’t see much in

that hole.”

The managing director said the project based on 52.4 square kilometres “20 to 25 minutes from either” Dubbo or Dunedoo was “in abeyance”.

“We’re remodelling and seeing what, if anything, can be done,” Mr Stewart said.

Drilling for rocks “under deep cover” including soils and silt was an expensive process.

“You can run out of money very fast,” Mr Stewart said.

To date Clancy Exploration Limited has spent about $300,000 on exploring the site, part of its search for copper and gold between “Wagga and Nyngan”.

Mr Stewart said “one of the biggest gold producers” Gold Fields of South Africa was “funding some of our work”.

Clancy Exploration, with offices in Perth and Orange, is listed on the Australian Securities Exchange.

Last week the Mineral Resource Division of the NSW Department of Primary Industries confirmed two companies were currently licensed to conduct gold exploration within the Brigalow Belt South Bioregion, formerly the Goonoo State Forest.

American mining giant Newmont is understood to be a licence holder, as is Clancy Exploration Limited.

Newmont’s representatives in Perth are yet to respond to questions put to it by the Daily Liberal.

kim.bartley@ruralpress.com