Calidus Resources has struck upon a bold growth strategy as it steams towards the development of its rapidly advancing Warrawoona gold project in the Pilbara. Drilling has kicked off in earnest at its flagship Klondyke deposit, targeting the rich inventory of gold speculated to sit below the existing resource. The company is scrubbing up a pipeline of resources to extend the life of the developing mine which should vastly improve its net present value.
Calidus Managing Director, David Reeves said: “Whilst we continue to accelerate Warrawoona towards development, we are concurrently building a pipeline of projects and growing our metal inventory in the area.”
“Our initial drilling at Klondyke will target the Klondyke Shear 300m below the current resource base to test continuity of the structure with the aim of highlighting the underground potential of Klondyke beyond the current resource.
“We will then turn our attention to the Otways Project where we have an outstanding walk-up drill target to test.”.
Calidus’ Warrawoona gold project is strategically positioned within the emerging Pilbara gold province of Western Australia. The company’s tenure is located a mere 25 km from the regional centre of Marble Bar and covers more than 780 km2 of highly prospective terrain.
The drilled-up resource at Warrawoona sits predominantly within the Klondyke open pit deposit, weighing in at impressive 20 million tonnes of ore going 1.79 g/t gold.
Calidus’ development team has identified the potential of the host structure at Klondyke to extend well below the existing drilling. An ambitious program of deep drilling has now been initiated to test the system at depth, with two diamond holes underway targeting the gold mineralisation at a whopping 400-450 metres depth.
Success in this drilling program may prove transformational for the company as it will see it grow the resource inventory exponentially, catapulting the project into another class.
Calidus recently entered into a JV agreement with Rugby Mining over the Otways Copper-Gold project near Warrawoona where historical exploration identified high-grade gold up to 13 g/t in shallow trench samples .
Calidus intends to follow up these results with RC drilling in the coming weeks, the results of which should be quite interesting.
Whilst Calidus listed on the ASX a mere 3 years ago, it has never really sat idle or failed to advance its project. With a well-developed program of modern and systematic exploration, it has grown the resource inventory at Warrawoona to an impressive 1.25 million ounces of gold.
Its 2019 PFS shows the project to be one of the highest margin undeveloped gold projects in Australia.
The company’s new strategy of pursuing ounces at depth whilst continuing to grow the near surface gold resource could turn out to be a transformational one for Calidus.
The market seems to believe it too, with punters running Calidus’ stock from 28.5c to a high of 57c in the last two weeks of May, with the Perth based company leaping through the $100m market cap hoop for the first time.
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By Matt Birney
