Matador Mining (ASX: MZZ) Explorers 2020

THE CONFERENCE CALLER: Matador Mining is looking for gold in Canada, specifically on the company’s 80 kilometres of continuous strike along the highly prospective, yet largely under-explored Cape Ray Shear in Newfoundland.

To date, only a 14km zone of that 80km package that makes up the company’s 100 per cent owned Cape Ray gold project has been drilled, but this has already established a JORC code-compliant Resource of 14.25 million tonnes at 2.2 grams per tonne gold for 1.02 million ounces of gold.

Matador Mining believes the exploration opportunity it has at Cape Ray to be extensive, something that could be considered a fair assumption, give only a small portion of the 80km strike has been drilled, and numerous high-grade gold occurrences have been observed along trend.

Indicative of this potential was the results the company achieved in the latter part of 2019 from a drill program focused on shallow resource extensions at Window Glass Hill (WGH) (currently 134,000 ounces at 1.2g/t gold).

This program consisted of 30 drill holes drilled at an average depth of 118m that substantially expanded the strike of mineralisation at WGH from approximately 500m to around 1.2km and remains open.

The drilling determined that hat mineralisation to the north is trending in an up-dip trajectory from the existing resource, with the average depth between 30m to 70m from surface.

This shallow mineralisation encountered in drilling aligned with the company’s strategy of targeting open pittable gold.

“The 2019 drill program at Window Glass Hill provides further confirmation of the importance of this deposit to the company’s overall long-term exploration and development strategy,” Matador Mining executive director Keith Bowes said.

“To have expanded the mineralisation of this single deposit to 1.2 kilometres, which remains open along strike and identified numerous new drill targets in close proximity, is a great result for our exploration team.

“We look forward to 2020’s program, which we expect will further add to this resource that is likely to become an integral part of our mining strategy at Cape Ray.”

Matador Mining has identified a number of ‘walk up’ drill targets for 2020, the testing of which will be focused on further growing the WGH resource.

Two step-out drill targets have been identified from interpreted mineralisation extensions.

The northern extents of the Central Shear 2, combined with drill results highlights the potential for further resource growth in these areas.

Three brownfield targets were identified through a combination of structural mapping, high-grade rock chips as well as historical drill results.

Exploration will initially include additional mapping and sampling prior to reconnaissance drilling later in the season, although the company is already confident in the potential of these targets, given the similarities to the current resource surface geology.

Matador believes there is plenty of untested greenfield potential about the place, withits eyes initially on the WGH granite contains the WGH deposit as well as the PW deposit, which is located on the southern extension of Central Zone.

Outside of the interpreted mineralised area, only three drill holes have been drilled on the southern portion of the granite unit on this area that stretches for approximately 2km of potential strike.

The company also completed the first soils program over the nearby Granites prospect during 2019, results from which were expected in early 2020.

Infill sampling, structural mapping and rock-chipping are planned for this area prior to potentially testing with drilling later in the season.

Matador Mining has appointed DRA Pacific to carry out a Scoping Study that will assess gold production at the Cape Ray gold project and the potential for an open pit gold operation with ore processed through a standard carbon in leach (CIL) facility.

Metallurgical testwork completed early 2019 determined average gold recoveries of 96 per cent across all deposits.

Key inputs for plant and infrastructure design have been sufficiently progressed to accurately scope the work required by the engineering consultancy.

The Study will be based on an updated mineral resource that was expected to be released early in 2020.

The mineral resource update will incorporate results from the extensive 2019 exploration program that involved the largest program at the project in more than 30 years.

“We have taken the time to complete a comprehensive review of the project so as to understand how to extract the optimum value from the asset and have ensured the key input data is available for the Study so as to limit assumptions and reduce risks going forward,” Bowes said.

“We…are confident that we will achieve a highly positive and robust result”

 

Email: info@matadormining.com.au
Web: www.matadormining.com.au
Directors: Keith Bowes, Adam Kiley, Grant Davey