Meeka Metals has delivered a string of high-grade shallow gold hits at its emerging St Anne’s discovery in the prolific Murchison region of Western Australia.
The ongoing air-core campaign is designed to test the fertile gold shear corridor extending south from the company’s Turnberry deposit, with the latest hits including a stunning 32 metres running at 16.07 grams per tonne gold from 48m downhole that contained 16m at 28.59 g/t of the precious yellow metal.
An additional 20m intersection returning 20.74 g/t gold from 48m with a high-grade core of 16m at 24.86 g/t also came from a nearby hole.
Meeka’s Turnberry deposit has a mineral resource of 11.3 million tonnes grading 1.7 g/t for 610,000 ounces of gold and is only 3km north of the St Anne’s prospect.
According to the company, mineralisation at the expanding prospect occurs in a very similar geological setting to Turnberry. As is the case with Turnberry, gold lodes have been recorded in quartz veining with pyrite alteration and on the contact between a mafic dolerite and sedimentary shales.
The most recent results follow on from a suite of stellar hits the company announced last month including 32m grading 2.03 g/t gold highlighting its St Anne’s prospect as a potential significant new gold discovery.
Interestingly, the latest round of high-grade intercepts is 400m north of the previous drilling with scant historical drilling in-between. According to Meeka, the rods are continuing to spin as it explores the highly prospective central zone along strike and at depth.
Meeka Metals’ Managing Director, Tim Davidson said:“The broad zones of shallow gold prevalent at St Anne’s continue to demonstrate the exceptional growth opportunity at our Murchison Gold Project. Pleasingly, these results also demonstrate the significant high-grade potential as we continue to grow the footprint of this large gold system.”
Whilst Meeka’s focus in on expanding the growing mineralised envelope at St Anne’s, the company is also casting a wistful eye over the underexplored 7km shear corridor that extends for the length of its tenure.
The company says sniffs of gold are evident from the limited broad-spaced reconnaissance drilling covering the fertile shear zone and intends to focus ongoing exploration in the area.
Meeka is already sitting on a 1.1-million-ounce resource at its Murchison project. The project has the advantage of being positioned along a major highway and is neighbouring a 1.8 million tonne per annum gold mill.
A scoping study released late last year delivered an encouraging set of figures evaluating gold production at its flagship project. Some of the highlights of the review include the company earning $457m a year over the operation’s eight-year mine life and an undiscounted cash flow of $182m.
According to the study, the project could achieve a total mine production output figure of 4.9 million tonnes at 2.8 g/t ground for 443,000 ounces of the precious yellow metal.
The project scoping study takes in underground mining at Andy Well along with open pit and underground mining at Turnberry and remarkably, has a payback period of just over two years with a $2300 gold price.
Meeka Metals is now working towards a prefeasibility study at Murchison along with establishing a maiden mineral resource at St Anne’s.
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