It said the airborne survey would cover an area of about 1,000sq.km that hosts a number of targets in addition to the Kalaba prospect where it is currently conducting an 11,000m drilling programme.

The ultra-low-level magnetic and radiometric airborne geophysical survey will be carried out by Xcalibur Airborne Geophysics, with flying starting this week and likely to take two weeks to complete.

After it is completed, Arc will process the data and then identify further targets.

Executive chairman Nick von Schirnding said the comprehensive high-resolution airborne programme would be used to "rapidly highlight further geological structures associated with known zones and potentially new zones of mineralisation and to prioritise areas for further drilling and possible joint ventures (JVs) with other mining companies". 

He said the programme would cost less than US$100,000 and the results would be correlated against existing soil geochemical data sets that are currently being analysed.

Arc's nomad and broker SP Angel said it expected one or more significant JVs to follow with a number of potential suitors showing interest.

"It is very encouraging to see such positive and generally improving grades and intersections so soon in the drill campaign given that we have seen only 11 of the holes drilled so far. We await news of the next batch of assay results and metallurgical work so we can see what sort of processing route should be used and what type of recoveries might be expected," it said.

The market wasn't as optimistic, with Arc's shares down 3.33% to 3.62p (US4.7c) Tuesday afternoon.