Horse Well continues to slake gold explorer’s thirst
THE INSIDE STORY: One important aspect separating Alloy Resources (ASX: AYR) from its contemporaries is that this junior gold explorer shines its spotlight on greenfield exploration.
Alloy’s main focus is the Horse Well gold project, located in the Warburton Mineral Field of Western Australia.
The Horse Well project is in a good neighbourhood, sitting in the northern most part of the Yandal/Millrose Greenstone belt that hosts a number of multi-million ounce gold projects, such as the Jundee, Bronzewing, and Darlot-Centenary gold mines.
The Horse Well portion of the greenstone belt seen limited exploration, mostly along the southern part, where Alloy and previous owners have identified JORC gold resources in near surface deposits.
This has resulted in a current JORC 2012 gold resource at Horse Well of 846,000 tonnes at 2.76 grams per tonne gold for 75,100 ounces.
Horse Well’s potential was highlighted when prominent WA gold miner and explorer Doray Minerals (ASX: DRM) struck up a Farm-in Agreement, under which it recently earned 60 per cent interest in the project following a two year exploration spend of $2 million.
Under terms of the Joint Venture agreement the project must have a further $2 million spent over the next 12 months, and Alloy has elected to contribute its 40 per cent to the cause.
Its ability to do so was enhanced by a recent raising of $1.32 million to professional and sophisticated investors.
“We think this is one of the best Australian gold exploration stories in the current market,” Alloy Resources managing director Andrew Viner told The Resources Roadhouse.
“We have one thousand square kilometres of contiguous tenements fifty kilometres north of Northern Star’s five million ounce Jundee mine.
“We’re controlling sixty strike kilometres of the Millrose Greenstone Belt, which is essentially the northern arm of the Yandal Belt, and in my opinion greatly under-explored.
“We saw strong potential for the unexplored country along this belt yielding new discoveries, all we needed to do was put the drill holes in the ground.”
Alloy’s confidence was rewarded when drilling carried out by Doray in 2014, encountered encouraging drill intersections at the Dusk til Dawn prospect of up to 65 metres at 2.6 grams per tonne gold, including 13m at 8.17g/t gold.
Subsequent RC drilling in September 2015 intersected thick zones of gold mineralisation, confirming Dusk ‘til Dawn as a new greenfields gold discovery.
Ongoing regional work undertaken by the JV identified a number of new targets within the project, including the Django, Warmblood South and Celia Shear areas.
“Up at Django in the northern part of the project, we infill air-core drilled a three kilometre long plus-100 ppb gold anomalous area from 400 metres spacing to 200 metre spacing in March and April this year, which has confirmed the trends we have identified there to be alive and well,” Viner said.
“Our understanding of the trend has changed slightly, insomuch that instead of the anomaly being one trend it has broken into two – being the east trend and the west trend.
“The key significance remains that these air-core results are very similar to what we saw at Dusk til Dawn in the early days – and that ended up being a great new gold discovery.”
Recent drilling at Django has shown the western trend extends over a strike length of at least 1.5km and a width of 300m.
Interpretation of results from aircore infill drilling has determined there to be two anomalies, described by Alloy as ‘pods’, situated within the trend.
Of these the southern one has emerged as the stronger returning results of:
HWAC 112
22 metres at 1.4 grams per tonne gold;
HWAC358
12m at 0.2g/t gold from 48 metres downhole (mdh);
HWAC396
4m at 1.1g/t gold from 44mdh; and
HWAC633
8m at 0.4g/t gold from 52mdh.
Drilling on the Django eastern trend demonstrated that it appears to break up into three subparallel zones within the larger three kilometre long zone.
The eastern trend, however, continued to return strongly anomalous results including:
HWAC395
8m at 0.5g/t gold from 60mdh;
HWAC636
4m at 0.5g/t gold from 60mdh; and
HWAC688
8m at 0.3g/t gold from 72mdh.
“The results from Django have been most encouraging,” Viner said.
“Particularly as the aim of the work was to refine the targets for future RC drilling programs.”
RC drill testing of Django air-core anomalies will be the initial part of an aggressive exploration campaign the JV has planned for the Horse Well project over the next nine months, as part of the required $2 million in JV expenditure during the 2016 calendar year.
The is anticipated to commence as early as May and will consist approximately 18 holes to a depth of 180m for a total of 3,240m with priority one holes testing four of the stronger air-core anomalies.
Other recent work involved drilling at Warmblood South, designed to test two geochemical anomalies identified by Alloy during previous exploration campaigns.
This encountered a range of lithology’s along the margin of a granitic intrusion.
Although the northern air-core pattern intersected limited anomalous results, with the best being 4m at 1.4g/t gold in HWAC421 from 60mdh, the JV believes the drill spacing of 80m leaves any potential mineralised contact zone poorly tested.
That being the case infill drilling is required to confirm anomalous zones and the dip of the contact and gold mineralisation.
Drilling of the southern soil anomaly at Warmblood South intersected anomalous results corresponding to chlorite and silica alteration and sulphides associated with the granite body.
Best results from this target included:
HWAC537
3m at 1.8g/t gold in from 52mdh; and
HWAC538
4m at 0.7g/t gold in from 48mdh.
Drilling completed at the Celia Shear prospect was over five lines, on 80m spaced centres designed to test the southern continuation of the regional Celia Shear structure, which the JV has determined to host a number of gold deposits within the Millrose Greenstone Belt.
Drilling intersected an alteration zone adjacent to a contact between a granitic intrusion and mafic volcanic rocks.
Assay results for this drill program were still outstanding at time of writing.
The JV is keen to get back in and complete approximately 1,200m to 1,300m of deeper RC drilling beneath known gold mineralisation at the Warmblood prospect with the stated aim to define the tenor and geometry of gold mineralisation in the fresh rock.
This will be the first part of a renewed investigation of the established gold mineralised area including Mineral Resources at Filly and Palomino.
The exploration carried out to date on Horse Well has thrown up few surprises to the JV with the project behaving according to plan.
“It is very straight forward exploration,” Viner assured The Roadhouse.
“The fact Doray has recommitted to the project every 12 months since coming on board is testament to that.
“They now have 60 per cent of the project and they aim to establish a standalone million ounce area that would support a new one hundred ounce per year gold project.
“That’s what they’re here for and we strongly believe we are well on the way to achieving that aim.
“With the historical Resources in the ground and the new discoveries we have made at Dusk til Dawn and, hopefully, now at Django, it’s all heading in the right direction.”
Alloy Resources Limited (ASX: AYR)
…The Short Story
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Email: info@alloyres.com.au
Website: www.alloyres.com.au
DIRECTORS and MANAGEMENT
Andrew Viner, Kevin Hart, Andre Marschke
MAJOR SHAREHOLDERS
Manafield Holdings 4.89%
Rojo Nero Cap Pty Ltd 3.81%
Wilson Walter S + MA 3.66%
Western Discovery 3.65%