Coda Minerals has announced a merger with its Elizabeth Creek joint venture partner Torrens Mining.

Coda will offer Torrens shareholders 0.23 of a Coda share for every Torrens share held, valuing Torrens at 20.2c per share, a 30% premium to the previous closing price.

The transaction is expected to unlock significant strategic and financial benefits by consolidating ownership Elizabeth Creek in South Australia.

Coda had earned 70% of the project from Torrens and was on its way to achieving 75% ownership.

Elizabeth Creek contains the exciting Emmie Bluff and Emmie Bluff Deeps copper discoveries.

Emmie Bluff, which is just just 30km west of OZ Minerals' Carrapateena copper-gold mine and only 15km from BHP's exciting Oak Dam discovery, is a Zambian-style copper-cobalt deposit.

In December, Coda reported an initial indicated and inferred resource for Emmie Bluff of 43 million tonnes at 1.3% copper, 470 parts per million cobalt, 11 grams per tonne silver and 0.15% zinc, or 1.84% copper equivalent, using a 1% copper equivalent cut-off grade.

Contained metal is 560,000 tonnes of copper, 20,000t of cobalt, 15.5 million ounces of silver and 66,000t of zinc, or 800,000t of zinc equivalent.

About 90% of the tonnage and 92% of the metal sits in the indicated category.

According to Coda, the resource makes Emmie Bluff one of the largest known sediment-hosted copper deposits in Australia.

The company has started preliminary scoping study work.

But the news that made investors sit up and take notice last year was the discovery of iron oxide-copper-gold mineralisation at Emmie Bluff Deeps, 400m southwest of the shallow Emmie Bluff deposit.

Coda shares jumped 180% in a single day in June 2021 when the company reported a thick zone of IOCG mineralisation in the first deep hole at Emmie Bluff Deeps.

The discovery hole returned multiple mineralised zones, containing an aggregate 35m grading above 1% copper, starting with 4.7m at 1.01% copper, 0.17 grams per tonne gold and 3.6gpt silver from 797m, and ending in 2.6m at 2.11% copper, 0.30gpt gold and 13.2gpt silver from 842m, including 1.45m at 3.44% copper, 0.42gpt gold and 22.1gpt silver. 

Since then, drilling has continued to extend the deposit laterally across hundreds of metres in multiple directions.

The thickest hit to date of 83m of chalcopyrite-dominated mineralisation was reported in December.

The company is awaiting assays for two deep holes.

Assuming positive results, the company expects to drill daughter holes from the two holes.

Coda is also progressing approvals to allow it to expand the drilling program.

Elaine, 30km to the south of Emmie Bluff Deeps, is a high-priority target given its similar geophysical characteristics.

The company is aiming to drill Elaine as soon as possible.

Coda remains well-funded, starting the year with roughly A$14 million cash.