De Grey Mining Extends Strike and Depth at Diucon

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THE DRILL SERGEANT: De Grey Mining (ASX: DEG) maintained its RIU Explorers Conference pace by reporting the latest resource extension and infill drilling results from the Diucon deposit at the company’s Hemi gold discovery in Western Australia.

According to De Grey the new results at Diucon, which is located in the west of Hemi, have extended mineralisation by approximately 120 metres along strike and 400m down plunge to the west of the May 2022 mineral resource estimate (MRE).

Diamond drill hole HEDD136 intersected:
75 metres at 1.1 grams per tonne gold and 72.3m at 1.4g/t gold, including:
15.1m at 1.6g/t gold from 599m;
53.4m at 1.4g/t gold from 654.2m;
14.1m at 3.1g/t gold from 750m; and
12.6m at 2.8g/t gold from 779.7m.

Mineralisation intersected in HEDD136 remains open in all directions, including up-dip, and to the west toward the Antwerp target, from where De Grey has previously released encouraging results.

Mineralisation at Diucon has now been intersected for approximately 560m along strike, to a depth of approximately 900 vertical metres and remains open.

Mineralisation on some sections attains a width of 300m over multiple lodes.

“Wide-spaced drilling down plunge to the WSW of the current Diucon resource has demonstrated that the Diucon mineral system is open in this direction,” De Grey Mining general manager exploration Phil Tornatora said in the company’s ASX announcement.

“Drilling is still very widely spaced and significant intersections are being returned from holes such as HEDD136 and HEDD128. This work has strong potential to extend Diucon’s current 1.6 million ounces mineral resource.

“Higher grade zones, often showing visible gold in quartz continue to support the potential for underground mining below open pit depths.

“In addition to diamond holes to follow up deeper mineralisation, shallow RC drilling is planned west of Diucon to follow up significant results from aircore and RC drilling at Antwerp.”

 

TO READ THE FULL ANNOUNCEMENT: CLICK HERE

 

Alto Metals Labels Oroya an Exciting Target at Sandstone

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THE CONFERENCE CALLER: High-grade gold results at the former Oroya mine indicate the further potential at Alto Metals’ (ASX: AME) Sandstone gold project, managing director Matthew Bowles told Resources Roadhouse on the sidelines of the 2023 RIU Explorers Conference.

A day earlier, Alto had announced the results, including 1m at 37.1 grams per tonne gold, from drilling both above and below the historical workings at Oroya and along strike.

The former mine historically produced 220,000 ounces at 16.5g/t gold from underground, plus 25,000oz at 2.5g/t from an open pit.

Bowles said the Oroya drilling was a small program for Alto, which has a resource update imminent for Sandstone’s shallow 635,000oz resource that’s currently held in the Lord Nelson, Lord Henry, Vanguard Camp, Havilah Camp, Indomitable Camp and Ladybird deposits.

Bowles said Oroya was “a really exciting regional target”.

“While we’re not sort of losing any focus, I guess, on our priority which is growing our existing resources – which are all shallow, open pittable, pit constrained – having something like Oroya is difficult to ignore, so it’s just trying to balance the two,” he said.

“I think investors can see the work that we’re doing also just demonstrates the quality of the projects that are in our overall project pipeline.”

 

READ MORE HERE

 

 

Encounter Resources Cites Encouraging Critical Minerals Start at Junction

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THE CONFERENCE CALLER: Encounter Resources (ASX: ENR) is onto an “encouraging start” for critical minerals at its Junction lithium project in the Northern Territory, managing director Will Robinson said on the sidelines of the 2023 RIU Explorers Conference. By Ngaire McDiarmid

On the eve of the event, Encounter reported that rock chip assays had confirmed lithium-caesium-tantalum pegmatites at Junction’s Crawford target, saying they were comparable to the host pegmatites of the Finnis lithium deposits in the Pine Creek region.

Robinson said it was the company’s first exploration in the area, which had been identified by director Dr Jon Hronsky as having potential for critical minerals or lithium.

“For us to go onto the ground and sample exactly what we want to see in our first program was a really encouraging start,” Robinson told Resources Roadhouse.

“Now the path from here is pretty clear, we’re going to do a soil sampling program and drill the best of the anomalies that come out of that.”

He thought the area was going to be regionally significant, noting Core Lithium’s Ringing Rocks lithium prospect was about 5km to the west.

Robinson expected exploration at Junction to form “a big part” of the 2023 work program for Encounter, which has suite of exploration projects in the NT and Western Australia, some subject to farm-ins with companies including BHP and IGO.

 

READ MORE HERE

 

 

Azure Minerals in Lithium Charge at RIU Explorers

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THE CONFERENCE CALLER: Azure Minerals (ASX: AZS) managing director Tony Rovira says the first lithium drill result from the polymetallic Andover project this week is very significant.

The company reported a mineralised pegmatite intersection, on the eve of the 2023 RIU Explorers Conference, of 7.2 metres at 1.51 per cent lithium oxide (Li2O), including a high-grade zone of 1.87 per cent Li2O over 3.1m.

The drill hole had been testing a nickel target at Andover, which has a resource containing 97,300 tonnes of combined contained nickel, copper and cobalt.

Rovira told Resources Roadhouse, from Azure’s booth at the conference, that there were “literally hundreds of outcropping pegmatites throughout the Andover project”, with rock chip samples returning up to nearly 5 per cent lithium oxide.

“So, the indications are that the pegmatites swarm at Andover has not only high-grade potential, but also has volume potential with so many pegmatites being present there,” he said.

“It’s early days…that was a hole that was actually targeting a nickel target.

“The lithium-focused exploration drilling will get underway in the next week or two.”

 

READ MORE HERE

 

Caspin Resources on ‘2-for1’ Deal at Mount Squires

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THE CONFERENCE CALLER: Caspin Resources (ASX: CPN) has described a “two for one deal” at its Mount Squires project, to Resources Roadhouse on the sidelines of the 2023 RIU Explorers Conference. By Ngaire McDiarmid

Caspin announced on Monday it had identified more gold targets including a 2km long gold in soil anomaly on the Handpump Fault, known as the Regal prospect, at the project in Western Australia.

CEO Greg Miles said the gold results had to be viewed in context with the company’s recently reported base metal results from Mount Squires’ West Musgrave corridor.
“What we’ve demonstrated is we’ve actually got two different mineralised trends in the project, so it’s a two for one deal,” he said.

“Our Mount Squires project, for a relatively small investment … has well and truly paid us back.

“We’ve brought that project up the prospectivity scale quite quickly.

“Yarawindah Brook will remain our key focus or our flagship, but I expect in 2023 we’ll have more of an equal focus on both projects, because both have a fantastic opportunity for a big discovery.”

 

READ MORE HERE

 

 

Dreadnought Resources Sets ‘Conservative’ Exploration Target

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THE CONFERENCE CALLER: Dreadnought Resources’ (ASX: DRE) rare earths exploration target announced this week is conservative, managing director Dean Tuck told Resources Roadhouse on the sidelines of the 2023 RIU Explorers Conference. By Ngaire McDiarmid

Dreadnought recently unveiled an exploration target of 50-100 million tonnes at 0.9-1.3 per cent total rare earth oxide (TREO) for the Yin ironstone complex at its Mangaroon project in the Gascoyne.

Yin already contains a resource comprising 14.36 million tonnes at 1.13 per cent TREO.

“We believe we’re on a globally significant region, between Hastings delivering their [Yangibana] resource and their exploration target and our discoveries and our resources we’ve put out and now our exploration target,” Tuck said.

“We’re trying to show the scale of the opportunity.”

The exploration target excludes both the underground potential and the C1-C7 carbonatites discovered at the end of 2022, Tuck said.

He sees potential for a large tonnage, long life, globally significant source of neodymium and praseodymium at Mangaroon.

Tuck explained Dreadnought was “not going to be drilling this for eternity” and wanted to deliver a 30-50 million tonnes resource then start study work to prove the economics of the project, before proving up additional resources.

 

 

READ MORE HERE

 

De Grey Mining Targeting Growth at Withnell South

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THE CONFERENCE CALLER: De Grey Mining (ASX: DEG) announced drilling results on the eve of the RIU Explorers Conference from the company’s 10.6 million ounce Mallina gold project in the Pilbara of Western Australia. By Ngaire McDiarmid

The results included drilling undertaken at the Withnell South target of 20 metres at 1.62 grams per tonne gold from 110m and 9m at 4.6g/t from 159m in MWRC0320.

“The beauty of these new results is that it’s a completely new series of lodes south of those old pits,” executive technical director Andy Beckwith told Resources Roadhouse on the sidelines of the RIU Explorers Conference .

“These results would potentially move it [Withnell] into a bigger pit and a bigger resource, hopefully.

“And the other thing it adds … that structure we’re seeing at Withnell South hasn’t been tested along the entire 10 kilometres yet [of strike known on the mining leases].

“So, time will tell, and lots of drilling.”

 

READ MORE HERE

 

Rising Trends in Costs and IPOs: Canaccord’s Howard at RIU

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THE CONFERENCE CALLER: Although costs are rising, Australia remains the cheapest place to build a gold mine, according to data Canaccord Genuity senior mining analyst Paul Howard showed the RIU Explorers Conference. By Ngaire McDiarmid

Speaking to a standing room only crowd on the opening day of the conference, Howard put this down to efficiencies and localised skills.

Howard ran through his market update, saying the number of deals were on the rise with more than 3,500 done in equity capital markets raising $54 billion over the past 10 years.

There had been a similar increase in IPOs, with more than 1000 on the ASX in the same period and 41 per cent of those in the resources and related services sector.

And if it seemed there was an increase in lithium offerings, Howard said his data backed it up with the number of lithium IPOs doubling from 10 per cent in 2021 to 20 per cent in 2022.

“There’s been a big increase in EV-related IPOs,” he told Resources Roadhouse on the sidelines.
“Lithium’s a big part but things like rare earths and … critical metals are really on the increase.”

However, IPO performance dipped from an average 36 per cent in 2021 to 6 per cent in 2022, which “probably highlights the reason you might want to have a diverse portfolio,” Howard told delegates.

The industry’s exploration spend was on the rise, but wasn’t back to 2012 boom levels, he said.
Howard’s close look at the gold sector showed a rising trend in the both the number of mining studies produced and costs involved.

He said there had been 725 studies put out by gold companies since 2003 and put the increasing number of studies down to commodity prices rising and old projects being dusted off.

Source: Canaccord Genuity

“We are undertaking more mining studies; mines are getting more expensive to build and are generally smaller as we go deeper,” he said.

Capex was on average increasing by nine per cent from PFS to DFS level, and mine builds showed an average overspend of 12 per cent – except in Africa which came in under budget – according to the companies he assessed.

“So don’t despair – if you’re building a project and you’re going over budget, everyone else would appear to be as well,” he said.

All in sustaining costs were also rising in the gold sector and Howard said cash generation was anecdotally falling, which he said was probably down to more dividends, merger and acquisition activity and non-sustaining costs.

 

 

OZ Minerals takes off Craig Oliver Award

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THE CONFERENCE CALLER: Mid-tier miner and takeover target OZ Minerals (ASX: OZL) impressed the judges to win the 2023 Craig Oliver Award at the RIU Explorers Conference. By Ngaire McDiarmid

The annual award is presented in memory of industry stalwart Craig Oliver, who died in June 2010 when the Sundance Resources plane tragically crashed in the Congo with no survivors.

It was presented by Vertical Events managing director Stewart McDonald and Oliver’s 29-year-old daughter, Georgia.

RIU Explorers Conference owner Stewart McDonald, Georgia Oliver, OZ Minerals principal geologist Jim McKinnon-Matthews

 

“This award is presented to an Australian mining company who reflects the person my dad was – an all-rounder, who’s passionate, and it’s for a company who has excelled in exploration, mining, corporate, market results and is also in the environmental space and the community over the past 12 months,” Georgia told the packed Day One auditorium.

OZ Minerals principal geologist Jim McKinnon-Matthews accepted the award on behalf of the company, which has recommended shareholders vote in favour of an increased offer from BHP.

He said the award was greatly appreciated and recognised the efforts by “a great many people” over the years, adding the company had worked very hard to create value for all of its stakeholders.

“What we do is not the most important thing, it’s how we do things,” he said.

OZ Minerals has copper operations in South Australia and Brazil and the West Musgrave nickel-copper development in Western Australia.

The other nominees were Gold Road Resources, Hastings Technology Metals and Liontown Resources.

 

 

Day One Announcements Set Tone for Successful RIU Explorers Conference

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THE CONFERENCE CALLER: There were plenty of ASX announcements from companies eager to attract attention of delegates to get things started on Day One of the RIU Explorers Conference.

 

Global Lithium Resources (ASX: GL1) reported the results of a Scoping Study carried out at the company’s Manna lithium project east of Kalgoorlie in Western Australia.

Global Lithium owns 100 per cent of the Manna lithium project that hosts a Total Mineral Resource Estimate (MRE) of 32.7 million tonnes at 1 per cent lithium oxide (Li2O), with 58 per cent in the Indicated category.

“The results of the Scoping Study show the true quality and real potential of the Manna lithium project,” Global Lithium managing director Ron Mitchell said.

“The exploration team worked extremely hard throughout 2022 to provide a solid foundation for the Manna lithium project.

“The development team will now diligently progress all the necessary technical components and engineering work streams to ensure the project is sufficiently de-risked allowing the company to progress to a final investment decision next year.”

 

READ MORE HERE

 

Cygnus Metals (ASX: CY5) announced assay results from the first two drill holes undertaken at the company’s Pontax lithium project in the James Bay region of Québec, Canada.

Results from the first two holes returned multiple intercepts including individual intersections of up to 16.5 metres at 1.1 per cent Li2O that are some of the thickest Cygnus has achieved to date, which it said highlights the scope for growth at Pontax.

“These are very strong results which demonstrate Pontax has both grade and width,” Cygnus Metals managing director David Southam said.

“Given that spodumene has already been outlined over a 700 metres strike length, the results highlight the significant potential for growth through systematic exploration.”

 

READ MORE HERE

 

Miramar Resources (ASX: M2R) declared results from analysis of end of hole samples from aircore drilling it believes to have increased the potential for the company’s 100 per cent-owned Whaleshark project to host iron oxide copper gold (IOCG) mineralisation.

End of hole (EOH) samples from the 2022 aircore drilling campaign were analysed for a multi-element suite, including IOCG pathfinders with one hole returning the highest copper and cobalt results Miramar has seen from Whaleshark to date.

“At Whaleshark, we have the right aged rocks, the right style of alteration and the right combination of elements typically associated with IOCG mineralisation,” Miramar Resources executive chairman Allan Kelly said.

“As we continue to explore the project, we see more similarities with the signatures of various large IOCG deposits.”

 

READ MORE HERE

 

Ausgold (ASX: AUC) informed punters of initial results from a multi-rig drilling program it commenced in December 2022 at the company’s 100 per cent-owned 2.16 million ounces Katanning gold project (KGP) in Western Australia.

The company received initial program results for reverse circulation (RC) drilling (55 holes for 4,763m) it declared to demonstrate the presence of new high-grade zones of mineralisation along strike from and within the projects’ Central Zone and Southern Zone Resource areas.

“High-grade results from new drilling highlights the strong case for the Katanning gold project to be a much larger project,” Ausgold managing director Matthew Greentree said.

“The 25,000 metres drilling program is testing areas along strike from known Resource areas.

“With the majority of the program still underway, these early results anticipate further discoveries to extend Resource areas and expand targeted opportunities regionally at the Duggan, Stanley and Lake Magenta prospects.”

 

READ MORE HERE