AVZ Minerals Awards Manono FEED Study

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THE BOURSE WHISPERER: AVZ Minerals (ASX: AVZ) has awarded a 12-week Front End Engineering and Design (FEED) contract in relation to the company’s Manono lithium and tin project in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

AVZ Minerals charged Melbourne based engineering company, Mincore Pty Ltd to deliver key elements of the FEED study including to:

confirm the process flow sheet,
confirm all bulk material quantities to verify pricing, confirm selected equipment pricing,
finalisation of the execution schedule, and
provide ‘Issued for Construction’ early works drawings.

Mincore has offered to accept part payment for the FEED study in AVZ shares, which AVZ considers to demonstrate a strong vote of confidence in the viability of the Manono project.

“Progressing the design of the Manono project at this time is standard practice and has the benefit of bringing the technical design parameters to finality, thereby providing potential investors and financiers with comfort on the Manono project schedule, capital and opex costs,” AVZ managing director Nigel Ferguson said in the company’s ASX announcement.

“It will also save significant time moving forward, as the results of the FEED study will be delivered to the successful company that is awarded the process plant EPC contract.

“We are committed to progressing the Manono lithium and tin project in a timely manner and the award of this study is a big step on the pathway forward.”

 

TO READ THE FULL ANNOUNCEMENT: CLICK HERE

 

Email: admin@avzminerals.com.au

 

Web: www.avzminerals.com.au

 

 

Auroch Minerals Investigating Nepean Lithium Potential

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THE DRILL SERGEANT: Auroch Minerals (ASX: AOU) is investigating the potential for lithium mineralisation underway at the company’s high-grade Nepean nickel project, south of Coolgardie in Western Australia.

The Nepean nickel project contains the historic high-grade Nepean nickel sulphide mine that produced 32,303 tonnes of nickel metal at an average recovered grade of 2.99 per cent nickel between 1970 and 1987.

Auroch Minerals said the mine workings and drill-hole intersections at Nepean have confirmed some of the pegmatites to be more than 100 metres thick with lengths exceeding 1,000m, increasing potential to contain highly fractionated, lithium-enriched parts.

“We are pleased to announce that we have contracted the services of Peter Spitalny to undertake an investigation into what we believe is a significant potential for economic lithium mineralisation within the pegmatites at Nepean,” Auroch Minerals managing director Aidan Platel said in the company’s ASX announcement.

“Peter is well-known throughout Western Australia and even globally for his expertise in the exploration and economic evaluation of LCT pegmatites, and we look forward to what his initial investigation will tell us.

“Using Peter to evaluate the lithium potential means that our in-house geological team remains completely focussed on the nickel sulphide exploration at Nepean, and in particular the current RC drill program at Nepean which is now over two-thirds completed.

“We look forward to the results of both exploration programs in the near future, and will keep the market updated as results are received.”

 

TO READ THE FULL ANNOUNCEMENT: CLICK HERE

 

Web: www.aurochminerals.com

 

Neometals Benefitting from Battery Beneficiation

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THE CONFERENCE CALLER: There’s no denying Neometals (ASX: NMT) – the self-proclaimed “sustainable investment of choice going forward” – is in a league of its own when it comes to the smaller capped mineral houses listed on the Australian bourse. By Mark Fraser

The multi-pronged outfit has its fingers in a number of pies, with all of them relating, in some way or another, to electric vehicle (EV) and energy storage batteries technologies.

During his appearance at the 20th RIU Explorers Conference held in Fremantle last week, Neometals managing director Chris Reed was fairly selective when it came to discussing his company’s undeniably eclectic project portfolio.

Rather than talk about all five of Neometals’ major endeavours, including an advanced conventional nickel exploration play in its home state of Western Australia, Reed focused on two – both of which involve what could be described as above-ground “deposits” that negate the production of carbon dioxide.

The first was its 50:50 incorporated Joint Venture with the German SMS group GmbH to fully develop, and commercialise, its lithium-ion battery recycling technology, while the second involved its vanadium recovery JV in Sweden with unlisted Scandinavian-focused explorer Critical Metals.

In terms of the former, the WA-based company has developed a process flowsheet (known as LIB Recycling Technology) which targets the recovery of valuable materials from consumer electronic batteries – including devices with lithium-cobalt oxide cathodes as well as nickel‐rich EV and stationary storage battery chemistries containing lithium‐nickel-manganese‐cobalt cathodes.

Ultimately, this technology is designed to recover cobalt, nickel, lithium, copper, iron, aluminium, carbon and manganese and turn them into saleable products that can be reused in the battery supply chain.

A 2019 scoping study, based on earlier bench scale testwork, highlighted robust project economics. Data from the successful pilot program is guiding current demonstration trials as well as engineering and feasibility studies. A demonstration plant is being constructed at Hilchenbach, which sits 100 kilometres from Dusseldorf.

During the RIU show Reed suggested the circuit was not just concerned with battery recycling, but would effectively result in the establishment of a base metals refinery, albeit one that was “hydromet not a pyromet”.

“So we just feed batteries into it – that’s all,” he remarked.

“And we beneficiate them too … these grades will double by the time we put them into a leach circuit.

“We did this in Australia and we are using solvent extraction developed in Mt Isa.

“So, we can take batteries of any format, in any state of charge, we safely process them, take out the plastics, the scrap, the metal and aluminium foils, and we get black mass, which is the graphite anode and the battery materials – nickel, lithium, cobalt, manganese – (and we) dissolve them in sulphuric acid, and sequentially strip them out.

“And why we are focused in Germany is 60 per cent of Europe’s battery making operations will be in Germany, and you’ve got the best car makers there, which is fantastic.

“And we’ve secured, for our first demonstration trial, 25 tonnes of EV batteries from one of the leading German car makers. And at the next trial we will run the stationary energy storage batteries and we’ve got about half the feed for that.”

In terms of the vanadium project, which is also a 50:50 JV, Neometals and Critical Metals are evaluating the feasibility of recovering high purity (over 99.5 per cent) vanadium products from three high grade vanadium-bearing steel by-product stockpiles (slag) in Scandinavia owned by SSAB.

Under the agreement, the ASX-listed company will fund and manage the evaluation activities up to the consideration of an investment decision.

According to Neometals, the deal provides a secure basis for the evaluation of an operation capable of processing 200,000t of slag per annum without the need to build a mine and concentrator like existing primary producers.

Other attractive project attributes include the fact the processing flowsheet uses conventional equipment at atmospheric pressure and mild temperatures and there is potentially saleable by-product generation. In addition, there is the likely possibility of a very low, or net zero, greenhouse gas footprint given the absence of mining and a processing route requiring the sequestration of carbon dioxide.

Reed told RIU delegates that while the process would work using sulphuric acid, that would generate a sulphate tail.

“These guys won’t let you do that – they are all tree huggers and stuff like that in Scandinavia,” he said.

“So we’ve developed a process which is essentially a carbonate leach; like a really super-charged soda water.

“You get about 75 per cent extraction, but the tails are carbonate. And so we will actually sequest 65,000 tonnes per annum of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere for this project, and given that grade (around 3.93 per cent vanadium pentoxide) it’ll be the lowest cost quartile every day of the week.

“It’s fantastic. It’s not very often that you ever see a project where you’ve got 10 years stockpiled, and these guys are making 240,000 tonnes a year excess on the stockpiles.

“By the time we build it there will be bloody three million tonnes there.

“So, it’s fantastic – I’ve got to say we’ve never been happier with any project we are earning into.”

Reed said Neometals had developed a “fantastic team with a lot of metallurgical and mining skills” that it inherited after developing the Mt Marion lithium project in WA.

“(With) the development and sale of that we’ve given back $55 million in dividends in the last five years (and) we’ve still got $80 million in cash and investments and no debt,” he added.

“What we do and what we present to our shareholders is an unparalleled exposure to this megatrend in these commodities.

“So, we sat back a number of years ago – we got into recycling in 2016 after we started developing Mt Marion because we knew there were better places to be in the supply chain.”

 

Kaiser Reef to Explore NSW via Victoria Mine Restart

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THE CONFERENCE CALLER: A decision to effectively re-list shortly after making its debut on the Australian bourse seems to have paid off for Kaiser Reef (ASX: KAU) as it joins the ranks of domestic gold producers. By Mark Fraser

Having established an initially modest cash cow in the form of the A1 mine in Victoria’s Maldon Goldfield, the company is now free to pursue one of its original goals – to go out and explore a prospective chunk of the northern Lachlan Ford Belt (LFB) in New South Wales.

When Kaiser Reef first listed in February 2020, going into NSW was a priority. But shortly after it started trading on the ASX, the company identified what it believed would be a compelling and strategically attractive acquisition.

This was the combined assets of the historic A1 operation, the Porcupine Flat Maldon gold processing plant and four granted mining leases, which Kaiser Reef purchased from administrators after raising $7.5 million during the second half of last year.

First discovered in 1861, A1 had already produced 620,000 gold ounces from ore grading an average of 25.9 grams per tonne by the time Kaiser Reef bought it. First gold was poured by the proud new owner within a week of re-listing during the summer of 2020/21.

Speaking during the 20th RIU Explorers Conference in Fremantle last week, Kaiser Reef executive director Jonathan Downes said as the Victorian operation had no reserves and minimal resources added to its inventory while under administration, building a resource base via exploration was now on top of the company’s to do list.

And there was, he suggested, an opportunity to increase A1’s production rate by the middle of the year by supplementing the current air leg mining through the use of long hole open stoping methods.

“The strategy right now is to continue the current drilling to find some proper reserves and put the company back on its feet after a long period of being in that sort of administration process,” Downes explained.

“It’s going to take us several months to really get the first resources and reserves back into the company. It did have some significant resources – we deleted those because we wanted to start from scratch and have a lot of veracity behind the work that we proceed with now.”

Shortly after the RIU show, Kaiser Reef showed it was serious when it told investors that the latest drilling results from A1 had included gold intercepts like 12.1 metres at 24.26 grams per tonne from 20m and 1.8m at 11.6 grams per tonne from 81.7m.

This second result included a higher grade zone of 5m at 44.3 grams per tonne from 20m and another one of 5.1m at 13.7 grams per tonne – separated by a 0.3m core-loss interval.

Furthermore, the above-mentioned 5m at 44.29 grams per tonne interval contained 1m at 187.25 grams per tonne from 20-21m, which was within a strongly altered dyke (pervasive carbonate and sericite alteration) with disseminated sulphides.

This drilling program, Kaiser Reef said, continued to expand into resource definition for short and medium term production horizons, with around 4,000m to be completed.

Moreover, this would see more drilling at A1 in four months than there had been the three years prior, which in itself was important for the planning and development of an expanded mining operation.

During the RIU show Downes suggested the company was already more-than-happy with its Victorian investment.

“Because we just purchased this project out of administration, we didn’t pay a market price for the asset – we paid what it cost to settle with creditors, deal with administrators and bring this thing back into listing,” he said.

“So we bought something at a non-market price, which is why we have an enterprise value today of less than $35 million which, I may be wrong, but I think that is possibly Australia’s lowest priced operating gold mine.”

While the Maldon acquisition may have re-routed some of Kaiser Reef’s original corporate direction, the company hasn’t forgotten about its NSW LFB tenure, where it has two key exploration projects.

The first, the wholly-owned Stuart Town, is located on the trend just north of Newcrest Mining’s (ASX: NCM) giant Cadia gold copper mine and Alkane Resource’s (ASX: ALK) Boda discovery in the state’s central west, while just to the north west is Macquarie North, where some of the conceptual targets are large scale porphyries, “in areas beyond the belts you see the traditional porphyry mines”.

Downes told the RIU crowd that Stuart Town contained a coincident gravity and magnetic target directly below some gold workings as well as large scale geophysical targets modelled at shallow depth and not yet drill tested.

“Stuart Town may have the densest group of gold workings in NSW, and to say it has been underexplored is an understatement,” he said.

“CRA did do a detailed soil survey there and found some huge soil anomalies.

“We have been out there – we’ve been drilling. And we’ve got gold in every drill hole. We found it was very course gold so a lot more met work is going on trying to work out exactly what that gold is composed of.”

As for Macquarie North, its location at the northern end of the Macquarie Arc augers well given these rocks host some of Australia’s largest copper-gold mines.

Downes said this project contained large scale geophysical targets that were yet to be drill tested.

Obvious mineralisation, he maintained, was being obscured by shallow-to-medium overburden.

“That will probably be the last project we get to – it’s still only at an exploration application stage,” he added.

 

 

Venture Minerals Commences Drilling at Golden Grove North

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THE DRILL SERGEANT: Venture Minerals (ASX: VMS) has commenced a second phase of exploration drilling at the company’s Golden Grove North project in Western Australia.

Venture Minerals has kicked off proceedings with Diamond Core drilling that will be testing priority zinc-copper-gold targets that will follow up on results from earlier reconnaissance style drilling at the Orcus prospect and maiden drill holes testing a number of the other newly identified, strong EM conductors situated along the five kilometres long VMS Target Zone akin to the Scuddles-Gossan Hill area at the Golden Grove Mine along strike to the south.

“The much anticipated second phase of drilling at the company’s flagship exploration asset Golden Grove North has begun,” Venture Mining managing director Andrew Radonjic said in the company’s ASX announcement.

“Venture’s Exploration Team will switch focus to following up some very exciting drill intersections at Orcus and several strong EM conductors within the Golden Grove North VMS Target Zone.

“The company’s Western Australian assets continue to deliver exciting exploration opportunities whilst the Riley Iron Ore Mine Development Team gets on with building the Wet Screening Plant.”

 

TO READ THE FULL ANNOUNCEMENT: CLICK HERE

 

Email: admin@ventureminerals.com.au

Web: www.ventureminerals.com.au

 

 

De Grey Mining Defines Depth Extensions and New Footwall Lodes at Falcon

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THE DRILL SERGEANT: De Grey Mining (ASX: DEG) has defined further mineralisation at the Falcon intrusion, part of the company’s Hemi gold discovery in Western Australia.

De Grey Mining reported the mineralisation has been defined over a strike length of approximately one kilometre and is associated with highly brecciated and extensively sulphide altered portions of the north-south orientated subvertical intrusion.

The company said the style and intensity of alteration and brecciation is similar to its nearby Aquila deposit.

The latest results include:

HERC400DW1
55 metres at 1 gram per tonne gold from 263m and 16.5m at 1.1g/t gold from 324.5m − within an overall zone of 111.2m at 0.8g/t gold from 239.8m.

The company explained this to be currently the deepest hole showing mineralised intrusion that extends to 450 below surface.

HERC401D
24m at 0.9g/t gold from 302m and 12.5m at 1.3g/t gold from 331m − within an overall interval of 57m at 0.8g/t gold from 299m.

“The latest extensional drilling at Falcon demonstrates the increasing scale of the zone with mineralisation now intersected over one-kilometre strike and over 350 metres in depth,” De Grey Mining general manager exploration Phil Tornatora said in the company’s ASX announcement.

“New 160 metres spaced step out diamond drilling is underway to extend mineralisation to approximately 450 metres depth.

“The intrusion is increasing to approximately 100 metres thick at depth and multiple new footwall lodes are beginning to develop.

“Infill drilling is also providing confidence in the continuity and consistency of gold mineralisation.

“Falcon is open at depth and deeper step out diamond drilling is being prioritised to test this potential.

“These recent results, and further depth extensions, have the potential to significantly increase the already substantive gold endowment at Falcon.”

 

TO READ THE FULL ANNOUNCEMENT: CLICK HERE

 

Email: admin@degreymining.com.au

Web: www.degreymining.com.au

 

Calidus Resources Poised for Pilbara Gold Production

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THE CONFERENCE CALLER: Those looking to quell any doubts regarding the potential of Western Australia’s Pilbara region as a future major gold producing hub should look no further than the example being set by Calidus Resources (ASX: CAI) at its emerging Warrawoona project. By Mark Fraser

While a lot of the oxygen in the small end of town gold space is currently being sucked up by the success of WA-based explorer De Grey Mining (ASX: DEG), Calidus has diligently been working its way towards becoming a producer by the first half of 2022.

The company is currently on the path to establishing a $120 million operation with an average production of 90,000 ounces per annum at a life-of-mine all-in sustainable cost of $1,290 per ounce over an initial eight year (and three month) life.

During this time Calidus is planning to mine 17.6 million tonnes grading 1.24 grams per tonne for 702,000oz (with the recovered gold content being 658,277oz).

Meanwhile, the scheduled ore processing rate is 2.4Mtpa (oxides) and 2Mtpa (fresh material) with the average life-of-mine recovery being 94.4%.

The key feasibility outputs, at a gold price of $2,500 per ounce, include an EBITDA of $110 million a year, a post-tax project free cashflow of $447 million, a post IRR of 69%, a post-tax NPV of $286 million and a payback period of 13 months.

Warrawoona currently has ore reserves of 14.3Mt grading 1.2 grams per tonne for 547,000oz, while the company’s total resource inventory sits at 43.7Mt grading 1.06 grams per tonne for 1.5 million oz.

During the 20th RIU Explorers Conference in Fremantle, Calidus managing director Dave Reeves said later this quarter the company planned to release an integration study on the Blue Spec deposit – a super high grade resource containing 219,000oz grading 16.3 grams per tonne – with the intention of bringing it into the current mine plan and increasing production “significantly on an annual basis”.

Located about 70km to the south-south east of Warrawoona, Blue Spec covers a strike length of 8km and remains open down-dip and along strike.

Made up of two ore bodies that is separated along strike by 1km, Blue Spec was mined in the 1970s.

“It is an ore body that requires flotation – we will have a little flotation circuit to the side of Warrawoona, so we will produce gravity gold, a flotation concentrate, and we will then also put the tails through the CIL,” Reeves explained.

“So, we will get about 20-25 per cent of the gold through the Warrawoona gold plant and 75 per cent through concentrate sales – (there is) a very simple circuit in that and one we see as very low risk.

“The scoping study will be out this quarter, the DFS (will be) out around the first gold pour so that when things settle down at Warrawoona we can press the button on this and bring it in as quickly as we can, because you don’t often get 16 gram ore bodies – in fact I think it is the first one I have been involved with, so it has been an absolute pleasure.”

Main construction is set to begin this quarter. Early site works – including the installation of an accommodation village, water bores, communications and access roads – have been completed.

Reeves said he “couldn’t agree more” that the Pilbara was the place to be for an emerging gold producer.

“If you have a look, yesterday Novo (Resources – TSX: NVO) poured their first bar of gold from their Beatons Creek operation at Nullagine to the south east of us, Capricorn (Metals – ASX: CMM) will be pouring gold to the south of Newman later this year, we will be pouring gold early next year, so it is certainly an epicentre of gold development in WA,” he said.

“De Grey is obviously out there kicking goals, and there are a lot of other deposits as well.”

“So it’s a fantastic place to be from the gold perspective.”

 

Carawine Resources Encamped on the East and West Coasts

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THE CONFERENCE CALLER: While he didn’t exactly give the game away during his formal presentation at the RIU Explorers Conference in Fremantle, Carawine Resources (ASX: CWX) boss David Boyd does have a couple of favourites when it comes to his company’s five highly prospective Australian exploration projects. By Mark Fraser

While Boyd told Resources Roadhouse he was still pretty much sitting on the fence when it came to Carawine’s extensive and diversified minerals portfolio, he had to admit there were a couple of standouts for him – and they were the first two mentioned during his time at the RIU podium.

The first is the Tropicana North gold project in his home state of WA, where the company has 80 kilometres of strike in the prospective Tropicana Belt some 400km north east of Kalgoorlie-Boulder and is now looking at multiple targets.

Meanwhile, the second is the Jamieson gold-copper-zinc play in Victoria’s south east Lachlan Fold Belt, home of the high-grade Hill 50 gold deposit as well as a number of interesting porphyry targets.

“In the second half of last year we did two deals – one with a combined interest in a couple of granted tenements to the north and south of Tropicana and another deal to give us a big bunch of application ground which – together with the ground Carawine had pegged previously – basically gave us the second largest holding throughout that Tropicana Belt,” Boyd explained.

“And we’ve just finished 100-odd holes there – over December and into January we did around 3,000 metres of RC drilling and 4,000m of aircore.

“It’s a really exciting prospect, so in terms of what’s new and exciting for the company it’s definitely the Tropicana stuff, and we will see those results come through.

“But Jamieson has been bit of a mainstay for us – there’s a gold system there that is good to chase down.

“So they would be the two right now.”

In relation to Tropicana North, Carawine – as 90% partner – formed a Joint Venture with Thunderstruck Investments to take a closer look at, amongst some other prospects, the advanced Hercules and Atlantis targets which, combined, have already returned assays like 3m at 12 grams per tonne from 49m, 10m at 4.02 grams per tonne from 127m, 15m at 21 grams per tonne from 50m and 9m at 5.19g/t from 63m.

Meanwhile, over in north east Victoria, the company has also launched another drilling campaign focusing on the Jamieson volcanics, where it is confident it has found links with the prospective Stavely volcanics (in western Victoria) and Tasmania’s Mt Read volcanics.

Although down-plunge extension drilling at Hill 50 has revealed promising gold-only intercepts like 50m at 3.08 grams per tonne and 101m at 1.44 grams per tonne, other holes have included copper mineralisation as well.

These include 43m at 4.24 grams per gold and 0.3 per cent copper (with 5m at 24.1 grams per tonne gold and 0.4 per cent copper) as well as 67m at 2.94 grams per tonne gold and 0.1 per cent copper (including 11m at 13.9 grams per tonne gold and 0.2 per cent copper).

Another interesting aspect of the Carawine story is the fact it has formed a few JVs with some serious mining houses – with two partners being Rio Tinto (ASX: RIO) and Fortescue Metals (ASX: FMG) at its Paterson copper-gold project in WA’s east Pilbara.

With the West Paterson target, Rio Tinto has farmed-in to the tune of $5.5 million and can earn up to 80% in a discovery.

In the meantime, just to the south east at Coolbro, Fortescue’s $6.1 million farm-in can earn the iron ore miner up to 75% in any ore body found.

“When we did those deals we had already done a bit of our own work, generated targets and lifted them up to the next stage of the exploration process,” Boyd said.

“We then looked at where we could spend our money, which is hard fought for and generously guarded, and thought about where it could be best spent – at where we would get our best bang for our buck.

“So at that time we thought we would be better off concentrating on our other projects and letting the likes of Rio and FMG, who are already active in the area, become involved.

“The outlook here is probably a little longer term, but we’re happy to give away some of the interest in these projects and see these farm-in partners spend the money to advance them.

“Ultimately the outcome of these deals in the Paterson is about $12 million being spent in the ground that we don’t have to find ourselves.”

 

 

Aruma Resources Pitches New Gold Camp

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THE CONFERENCE CALLER: Gold explorer Aruma Resources (ASX: AAJ) is living proof the market doesn’t always respond appropriately to the release of a promising set of drill results. By Mark Fraser

On the day the company’s managing director Peter Schwann spoke at the RIU Explorers Conference in Western Australia, Aruma had just published the initial assay results from 37 of a 40 hole 4,518 metre maiden RC drilling program at its Saltwater gold project in WA’s Pilbara.

On face value this all should have generated some investor interest for the company.

For a start 14 out of 37 holes hit anomalous gold (over 0.2 grams per tonne), while the results extended over a 4 kilometre strike length (which was open in all directions), indicating the presence of a possible new gold camp.

Furthermore, according to Schwann, a supergene gold blanket in excess of 200m in width was identified.

In addition, the results confirmed the Saltwater anomaly, returned assays of up to 1.26 grams per tonne and validated the outcropping Saltwater ring structure, which in turn highlighted a target area of 65 square kilometres.

The market, however, did not seem bullish, with Aruma’s share price dropping from 0.094 to 0.074 cents – a fall of 21.28 per cent.

“Now the question I have to ask is: why do we want to do greenfields exploration?” a seemingly perplexed Schwann asked RIU delegates.

“We put out good results this morning and bang – down we go.

“But the rewards are great. They’re there, De Grey and Chalice prove it.

“So that’s the rant – the rant is over.”

Aruma’s close-spaced drilling targeted old workings at the historic Saltwater mining area within the recently identified and prospective Mt McGrath Formation, host of the Mt Olympus gold mine.

Meanwhile the wider-spaced holes aimed at the extension of the contact and structure under cover some 3km to the east.
Aruma told the ASX that the supergene blanket was located almost 4km from the Saltwater cluster and highlighted the potential for a significant system – with the intersection of 4m at 0.47g/t in hole SRC 32.

Saltwater has eight granted exploration licences covering 736 square km. It sits around 100km south west of Newman and enjoys a strike extent of more than 65km of the highly significant Nanjilgardy Fault, the same regional structure reported as the primary source of gold mineralisation at Northern Star Resources’ (ASX: NST) Paulsens gold mine and Mt Olympus.

Despite the confused reaction from the market regarding the Saltwater drill results, Schwann still made his case for Aruma being an investment destination just before he stood down from the RIU podium.

The company, he said, offered organic growth via project generation for large gold discoveries in Australia.

It also wholly-owns large prospective project areas near major gold deposits in underexplored areas in both WA (Saltwater, Melrose and Scotia South) and New South Wales (Capital) that combined cover 1,572sqkm.

In addition the junior is debt-free and has $3 million in cash and receivables.

Just as important, though, is the fact Aruma does not plan to idly sit around.

“We’re going to be drilling, drilling, drilling,” Schwann said.

“And the good thing about our money is that we spend our money one and a half times.

“These are the R and D returns that we have got back since I took over in 2011 ($9,570,754, or a 43.8% return, creating a tax benefit of $4,189,894), so you can see we’ve got about $4 million – about the same as a float.”

 

 

AuTECO Minerals Revitalising Pickle Crow

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THE CONFERENCE CALLER: Canada-focused AuTECO Minerals (ASX: AUT) wants to make one thing clear – it is not just revitalising an historic gold mine at its Pickle Crow gold brownfield project in Ontario, but is on the verge of establishing a major new gold camp. By Mark Fraser

The Perth-based company is now in the process of updating the project’s resource inventory and is looking to have new numbers in place sometime during the second quarter of 2021.

It plans, however, to also devote part of its current drilling campaign towards looking for further regional targets based on encouraging historical data.

The project, which sits 400 kilometres north of Thunder Bay in the Canadian province of Ontario, clocked up historic production of 3.1 million tonnes grading 16.1 grams per tonne for 1.05 million ounces between 1935-1966.

Although the company is encouraged by the drilling results coming from within the proverbial shadow of the headframe, regional assays have suggested there is more in the area than has previously met the eye.

During his appearance at the 20th RIU Explorers Conference in Fremantle, AuTECO chief operating office Darren Cooke said it was important to note that limited systematic exploration had taken place outside of the immediate Pickle Crow mine area which had revealed broad camp-scale mineralisation and compelling walk-up discovery targets.

Although previous work had shown structures parallel to the main Core Mine shear contained indications of significant gold mineralisation, limited follow-up activities were completed.

Some of these historical regional gold intercepts included 1.7 metres at 36.6 grams per tonne from 15.1m (Springer Shaft), 4.6m at 9.3 grams per tonne from 27.1m, (F Vein), 6.1m at 7.3 grams per tonne from 86.6m (SW Powerhouse) and 6m at 7.7 grams per tonne from 232m (East Pat Shear).

So far AuTECO has completed almost half (around 20,000m) of its 45,000m drill campaign and currently has four rigs on site. Cooke said it was now trying to procure a fifth one to up the field ante.

As it stands the company has already established a resource of 2.8 million tonnes at 11.3 grams per tonne for 1 million ounces.

Its tenure covers 496 square kilometres with 106 patented mining claims, with the regional exploration focus being on the Pickle Lake Greenstone Belt and Sioux Lookout.

Importantly, the project boasts on-site surface and below ground infrastructure including three main shafts, 38km of lateral development, a 225 tonne per day processing plant, a 24 person camp, a 600 kilowatt generator as well as a core processing facility.

In addition it is grid-connected to hydropower.

Cooke said he sometimes referred to Pickle Crow as the “Kundana of Canada” as the project contained numerous analogues to other stand-alone deposits that had been discovered on parallel trends – including the Kundana camp in WA, which has yielded over 9 million gold ounces.

Aside from the fact they are both the same deposit type (Archean orogenic vein), Kundana also has similar host rocks (a mafic sequence with interflow sediments proximal to conglomerates), structural architecture (a multi-phase history with sub parallel shear zones and Riedel shear geometrics) as well as similar mineralisation (both are high grade narrow vein low sulphide quartz-carbonate-scheelite veins with a predominantly steep dip).

Cooke also noted that Pickle Crow was second on a list of emerging tier-1 exploration properties in North America and Australia which have over 1 million ounces in resources, but no reserves.

The first is dual-listed international mining giant Barrick Gold Corporation’s (TSX: ABX; NYSE: GOLD) REN project in the US state of Nevada, which currently contains 1.65 million oz at a resource grade of 13.4 grams per tonne.