WA-based company Impact Minerals said the first program of drilling would cover 3000 metres of its site near Wellington.

The drilling follows a period of mineral exploration that has seen the company state it had found characteristics at the site similar to the Cadia mine area south of Orange.

Managing director Dr Mike Jones said it was an important step.

"Impact Minerals Limited is pleased to announce that drilling is underway at the company's Apsley Prospect within its 100 per cent owned Commonwealth project in the Lachlan copper-gold province of NSW," he said.

Even if the test drilling returned positive signs it would be several years before mining could begin at the site.

Dr Jones said the company needed to gain a range of approvals for mining to take place. He said the drilling would concentrate on five areas.

"The Apsley Prospect covers a large and significant soil geochemistry anomaly which comprises a core zone 2000 metres long and 500 metres wide with coincident copper-gold-platinum and palladium anomalies which is surrounded by a larger zone or halo of zinc-lead and manganese," he said.

"Together these zones define a soil anomaly that covers nearly four square kilometres.

"The induced polarisation anomalies, which start close to [the] surface, extend to considerable depth and appear to link up along trend, all lie within the soil geochemistry anomaly and support Impact's contention that the whole area is potentially part of one large mineralised system," he said.

"Apsley is a text book area for the discovery of a major porphyry copper-gold deposit."

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