Morning News Bites – October 8

Morning News Bites for October 8

High Grade Hits at Bellevue.

Bellevue Gold (BGL) has reported that it has discovered a new shallow high-grade shoot at its Bellevue Gold Project in Western Australia.

Bellevue Managing Director Steve Parsons said: “The drilling results on the new Armand lode are outstanding, with high-grade mineralisation intersected near existing development hosted within the Bellevue Shear.

With mineralisation outlined over 450m and remaining open along strike and down dip, Bellevue will press ahead with drilling with a view to including Armand in the next resource upgrade.

The company has also hit some high-grade results close and east of their Deacon lode.  This was discovered when drilling a new location, which was partially financed by the Exploration Incentive Scheme

Bellevue has been aggressive in its drilling campaign while still maintaining the project development.

Mr Parsons said:  “We have earmarked $35 million for exploration spending on a full program of drilling and project development work over the next 15 months.

“This substantial investment is central to our dual-track strategy of driving growth in our inventory through aggressive exploration and resource drilling while also advancing the project towards development and cashflow.

“These parallel work streams will maximise our ability to continue creating value for shareholders in both the short and long term.”

Grades included:  6.1m @ 14.5g/t and 3.7m @ 26.2g/t

Dreadnought Announces Encouraging Drill Results.

Dreadnought Resources Limited (DRE) has announced further results from the 17-hole (1,767m) RC drill program at Metzke’s Find, part of the Illaara Gold-VMS-Iron Ore Project. The latest drill program tested extensions of lode mineralisation at depth and along strike confirming mineralisation along ~280m of strike and to a vertical depth of ~100m.

Dreadnought Managing Director, Dean Tuck, in a statement said: “Metzke’s Find continues to deliver high-grade intercepts while we steadily increase our understanding of the system. Identifying the flat lying offset now indicates that the first five drill holes drilled to the north probably ended short. This learning is significant and reopens ~80m of potential mineralised strike. We look forward to redrilling the main structure to the north as well as diamond drilling to further advance our structural understanding of the mineralised lodes. Furthermore, results from Longmore’s Find and Black Oak should be released in mid-October 2020.”

Illaara is located 190km northwest of Kalgoorlie in the Yilgarn Craton and covers 75kms of strike along the Illaara Greenstone Belt. The land was previously under the control of Newmont and until Dreadnought took over the lease, had very little exploration carried out.  The land was previously earmarked for iron ore exploration, but Dreadnought has focused on the gold potential in the area.

Yandal Releases Further High-Grade Results.

Yandal Resources (YRL) released further results from its current drilling program that shows high-grade gold mineralisation at shallow depths in their Gordons Dam prospect.  36 holes from the RC drill program are still pending and the company is keen to include them in their maiden resource estimate.

A further 10,500 metres of air-core and diamond drilling is expected to be completed in the December quarter.

When releasing the latest results Managing Director Mr Lorry Hughes said: “The potential to define an initial shallow Mineral Resource and subsequent open pit development is becoming clearer as infilling wide-spaced reconnaissance holes with high quality RC holes is proving successful. Very high grades can be a common feature of palaeochannel hosted deposits in the region and they are quite often located close to a primary source or structure.

High grades have been intersected beneath parts of the palaeochannel previously and the exploration plan is to continue to explore for deeper extensions utilising geological and structural observations from the pending diamond core drilling.

In the meantime shallow Air-core drilling will continue to explore for new palaeochannel and bedrock hosted gold trends in order to provide new targets for RC testing”.

Some of the results included:  1m @ 73.12g/t Au within 8m @ 11.03g/t Au from 36m and 1m @ 15.13g/t Au within 7m @ 3.48g/t Au from 38m.

Wiluna (WMX) Updates Sulphide Development

Wiluna Mining is advancing its $58m stage-one sulphide expansion project at its Wiluna gold mine, which it said will increase production from circa 60,000 ounces of gold a year to 250k ounces a year by late 2023 when the stage 2 expansion is completed.

In a statement to the ASX the company said that at its last board meeting it was approved the concentrator construction works to be completed by GR Engineering Services.  Construction is planned to start in March next year according to the company’s timetable with commissioning commencing in October.

Milan Jerkovic, Wiluna Mining’s Executive Chair commented: “I’m pleased to report that significant progress has occurred surrounding the sulphide development plan. A significant hurdle was met when the Board of Directors approved the construction of the concentrator and the appointment of GR Engineering to undertake the EPC contract for construction. The timetable is confirmed and the capital requirements for Stage 1 will be fully funded with the expected draw down of the Mercuria second tranche debt facility and work will commence immediately with commissioning planned for September 2021.

The challenge now is to deliver on Stage 1 and scope out the optimum size for Stage 2 given the considerable size of the Wiluna orebody. This will take shape in the Feasibility Study which is currently being undertaken. We are now exactly halfway through our 24 months strategy to turn the Company around, deliver real value to our shareholders and maximise the true potential of the Wiluna Mining Complex. We are delivering on our promises and we plan to execute with precision. The sheer size of Wiluna, which is now the 7th largest gold district under single ownership in Australia, based on JORC Mineral Resources, throws up challenges but nothing worthwhile comes easy and we believe the prize for shareholders of developing this project in a systematic, thorough and staged manner to become a Tier 1 asset in a Tier 1 jurisdiction will be worth it”.

Granny Smith Mine Powered by Renewables.

Continuing its push with renewable energy after its Agnew mine became the first in Australia to be powered with wind-generated electricity, operating a 56MW renewable energy grid, Gold Fields has built a solar system to help power capacity at its Granny Smith operations.

The system has 20,000 solar panels attached to a 2megawatt – 1megawatt battery system to store the energy produced by the panels.  It is expected the solar array will help reduce fuel consumption on the site by more than 10%.

Gold Fields Executive Vice-President Australasia Stuart Mathews is quoted as saying:  “Here in Australia and globally our company is committed to addressing climate change impacts by transitioning towards an energy mix that increasingly embraces renewables and lower carbon fuel sources,” Mathews said.

“The Granny Smith microgrid and the renewable energy solution at our Agnew mine are a clear demonstration of the innovative steps we are taking to ensure the ongoing sustainability of our operations.”

The system was installed by Aggreko and becomes part of the self-contained system on site.

Morning News Bites – October 7

Morning News Bites for October 7

De Grey (DEG) Releases Infill Drill Results.

Commenting on encouraging drill results at the Hemi Gold Discovery, De Grey Technical Director Andy Beckwith said:

“The plunging high grade zone at Aquila continues to grow to the west and downdip toward Falcon. Mineralisation at Aquila and Crow has been intersected to approximately 500 vertical metres and remains open.”

 The Hemi Gold Discovery is located approximately 60km south of Port Hedland in Western Australia.

The Aquila and Crow zones are located adjacent and to the north of the large Brolga intrusion at Hemi.

The infill drilling program will continue over the coming months at all the Hemi zones to enable a robust resource estimate targeting a high level of JORC 2012 Indicated category resources. The initial Hemi resource estimate is planned for the middle of 2021.

Black Cat Acquires More Projects.

Black Cat Syndicate (BC8) has entered into a binding agreement to acquire the Trojan, Slate Dam and Clinker Hill gold projects from Aruma Resources , subject to the satisfaction of certain conditions.

Black Cat’s Managing Director, Gareth Solly, said: This acquisition accelerates Black Cats move towards a target of more than 1Moz of Resources. The Trojan deposit has strong synergies to our Fingals Gold Project, presents a near-term mining opportunity with 115,000oz in Resource on a granted mining lease and will become part of our larger Fingals Gold Project. The acquisition increases our total Resources to 826,000oz.”

The Trojan deposit is located 65km SE of Kalgoorlie on mining lease M25/0104. The deposit sits just 15km (via the all-weather Trans-access road) east of the preferred site for Black Cat’s planned processing facility.

Great Northern Minerals Confirms Significant Drill Results

Great Northern Minerals (GNM) has released the final one metre resplit samples (BRRC1012 to BRRC1033) from the Reverse Circulation (‘RC’) drilling programme at the Company’s Big Rush Gold Project in Northern Queensland.

The total recent drilling at Big Rush comprised 22 RC holes for 3,634 metres spread over approximately 900 metres of strike underneath the southern, central and northern previously mined shallow open pits.

GNM Managing Director, Cameron Mclean said when releasing the results: The one metre results have confirmed the potential for very high grades to extend to significant vertical depth, particulary underneath the Central Pit. Results from underneath the Northern Pit are pointing to excellent further potential in this area and the planned deeper diamond drilling program which is about to commence is designed to test for extensions of the higher grade gold results.”

Victory Mines Confirms Commencement of Drilling Program

Victory Mines Limited (VIC) has announced that drilling has commenced at the Company’s Bonaparte Project in the Kimberley region of Western Australia.

Victory is conducting a 10 hole drilling program which will include twinning historical drill holes with modern drilling methods and sampling techniques. Drilling is expected to be completed and assays returned to the company for interpretation by late November 2020.

Down Hole Electromagnetic Magnetic (DHEM) tools will be used to help determine the presence and orientation of primary sulphide conductors. The DHEM survey is scheduled for the second quarter of 2021 following the end of the wet season.

Gold – What Goes Up Must Come Down

Gold has continued its roller coaster ride with a significant drop in price over night.  After hitting $1920USD yesterday during trade, this morning it opened about $1877USD.  The drop is attributed to US President Trump calling off talks with the Democrats about any stimulus package for the nation.  At time of writing gold was trading at $2642AUD.

With the US elections about a month away the next few weeks could see more volatility in the sector as the price fluctuates on predictions of the outcome.

Gold stocks on the ASX are down and it has taken back a little of the large gains from yesterday that Northern Star and Saracen experienced after the announcement of the two companies merging to form a B$16.1AUD company.

Morning News Bites – October 1

Morning News Bites for September 30. PM to announce $1.5 billion manufacturing boost to bring 80k jobs to Australia, experts predicting that half of Australian university researchers face the axe and Victoria COVID-19 death toll reaches 800.

Cyprium Metals Limited commenced analysing the potential of the Nanadie Well Copper-Gold Project, which is located 75km east-northeast of its existing Cue Copper-Gold Project, in Western Australia. The supergene mineralisation has been intersected in shallow drilling over a strike length of 750 metres and remains open along strike in both directions. Typical supergene intersections include, 6m @ 4.79% Cu, 0.36 g/t Au, 1.83 g/t Ag from 1m and 8m @ 2.53% Cu, 0.69 g/t Au, 3.88 g/t Ag from 33m in drill hole. Executive Director Barry Cahill commented, saying “We are pleased to announce the preliminary results of the geological interpretation that we have undertaken at the Nanadie Well Copper-Gold Project. There is significant potential for shallow supergene copper-gold mineralisation above the sulphide mineralisation at Nanadie Well.”

Thomson Resources Ltd has advised that it has completed due diligence on the Hortons gold tenement it is acquiring from private company, Syndicate Minerals Pty Ltd to Thomson’s satisfaction. The Hortons gold tenement is situated 30km of Tenterfield in Northern NSW and has high potential for Intrusion-Related Gold System type gold mineralization. The tenement covers 58 sq. km and has several gold anomalies. This is the first of the key Conditions Precedent to Thomson’s acquisition of the Hortons gold project. The next steps towards completion of the acquisition will now be proceeded with, including, obtaining Thomson shareholder approval to the issue of the equity consideration, this will be sought at the AGM on 26 October 2020 and with Ministerial approval of the transfer of the tenement to Thomson.

Further to its announcement of 16th July, AusQuest Limited reported that drilling of several compelling gold-copper targets at the Gunanya Project in the Paterson region of Western Australia is set to commence in early October under its Strategic Alliance Agreement with South32. The reverse circulation drilling program will consist of 6 to 9 drill-holes for a total of ~1,800m, and will provide an initial test of three magnetic targets to determine their potential to host large-scale gold and copper mineralisation, similar to that found at Winu (by Rio Tinto) and Havieron (by Newcrest). AusQuest Managing Director Graeme Drew said the Company was pleased that drilling of the Gunanya targets was able to get underway this late in the season. “These are compelling targets based on analogies that we have been able to draw with new discoveries in the Paterson Region from both a gold and a copper perspective,” he said. “We are looking forward to reporting on the drilling at Gunanya once the program gets underway.”

Bellevue Gold Limited is pleased to announce that extensional and infill exploration drilling at the Bellevue Gold Project in Western Australia has intersected high-grade mineralisation both outside and within the existing know resource boundary. Drilling has been continuing on site and has included infill drilling to upgrade the indicated resource later in the December quarter and the resumption of exploration step out drilling at the project. Hits up to 163g/t also point to extensions of the Deacon, Deacon North and Bellevue
Lodes; Indicated Resource upgrade set for this quarter. Managing Director Steve Parsons said the Company’s investment in exploration drilling continued to create significant value for Bellevue stakeholders.
“We have hit more high-grade mineralisation in previously-untested areas,” Mr Parsons said. “These results extend the known limits of the mineralisation. At the same time, our infill drilling continues to return strong results which should help drive an increase in the Indicated Resource.”

Barra Resources Limited is pleased to advise that reverse circulation and diamond drilling is scheduled to commence mid-late October at the Burbanks Gold Project. The drilling program will specifically follow-up encouraging RC drill results from 2019 which intersected high-grade mineralisation to depths of 100m below the surface, along 600m of prospective strike along the Burbanks Shear Zone between the Main Lode underground mine and the Burbanks North deposit. Mineralisation is open at depth and the planned program aims to test the prospective 600m of strike to depths between 130m and 350m below surface where mineralisation is open and untested. The drilling program is estimated to take between 4 and 6 weeks with results to be announced within 2 weeks of program completion.

Morning News Bites – September 30

Morning News Bites for September 30. Hydrogen boom set to hit $11 trillion USD, national contact tracing network unlikely to be in place until 2021 and Trump is about to go head to head with Biden in the first presidential debate. 

TSC Limited announced the commencement of RC drilling at the Rover Project in WA’s Goldfields. Around 33 holes for 1,800m is planned, to test four main areas. The RC drilling campaign is designed to follow up on previous significant results. Notably, the focus is to test new anomalous gold results at the Rover Project, following on from TSC’s auger drilling and soil geochemical programs. Results to be released progressively over the coming weeks as they come to hand.

Superior Resources Limited reported an update on the second batch of assays from the Resource Drilling
Program at the Steam Engine Gold Deposit, located approximately 210 kilometers west of Townsville, Queensland. The results further boost the consistently strong intersections returned in the first batch of assays from both the Steam Engine and Eastern Ridge Lodes. The second batch of assays returned a thick, high grade gold intercept at Steam Engine Lode, with highlights including; 14m @ 4.9 g/t gold from 0m (surface), incl 7m @ 9.2 g/t gold from 7m and incl 1m @ 47.5 g/t gold from 7m. Upcoming revised Mineral Resource Estimate expected to be upgraded from current 1.27 million tonnes @ 2.3 g/t gold (approximately 94,000 ounces), followed by completion of a scoping study.

Initial reconnaissance fieldwork programs at the recently-acquired Jimblebar and Pincunah gold projects in the Pilbara region of Western Australia have returned positive results for Trek Metals Limited, confirming strong prospectivity for gold mineralisation. The fieldwork program comprised mapping and sampling programs across both project areas and included the reprocessing of geophysical data to assist with geological interpretation. This work delivered a series of maps that combined airborne magnetic and radiometric data, as well as aerial photography, topography and processed satellite imagery. In combination with historical drilling results, these maps were then used to prioritise targets for sampling programs and later interpretation.

Toro Energy Limited reported that the reverse circulation drilling programme at the Golden Ways Target Area on the company’s owned Yandal Gold Project has been successfully completed. The Project is located in the Yandal Greenstone Belt some 15km NE of the world class Bronzewing Gold Mine and some 50km east of the world class Mt Keith Nickel Deposit in Western Australia. A total of 35 RC drill holes for 2,416m were completed in the programme over the Golden Ways target area, being 416m more than the 2,000m planned. Geological assessment of the drilling program is now underway. Drill chip samples have been selected for geochemical analysis and sent to the laboratory for assaying. It is expected that assay results will be returned in October.

Sultan Resources Limited provided an update on results from extension soil and rock chip sampling returned from ongoing exploration programs at the Big Hill AuCu porphyry project in the Company’s Lachlan Fold Belt. The ongoing exploration program is designed to identify drill targets with high potential to host
porphyry-style Au-Cu and/or epithermal gold mineralisation across the three highly prospective targets at Big Hill, Ringaroo and Tucklan. Jeremy King, Chairman of Sultan Resources commented saying, “Sultan’s methodical approach and boots on the ground exploration strategy has again paid off, revealing Razorback Ridge: outcropping chalcopyrite, malachite, chalcocite with good gold over a kilometre long, and unreported by previous explorers. It is testament to the quality our now expanded ground position that such outcropping
mineralisation can still be discovered walking the ground half way between Cadia and Boda. Razorback adds even more compelling ingredients to our Big Hill Porphyry Target, giving us more confidence to fast track further exploration not only around Big Hill and Razorback, but at Ringaroo and Tucklan where we eagerly await IP and soil results, as we turn toward drilling.”