Meeka Metals has thrown-up stellar shallow, high-grade gold infill drill hits, including 19m at 8.75 grams per tonne, at its 685-000 ounce Turnberry development project in Western Australia’s Murchison province.
With 1.2 million gold ounces already identified at its flagship Murchison gold project, the company is pressing ahead with its submission of development plans before year’s end and also updating its grade-control block model to prepare the Turnberry and St Anne’s sites for open-pit development.
The most recent result highlights also included a 9m hit reading 1.79g/t gold from 60m, including 1m at 12.50g/t, and 5m at 1.91g/t gold from 70m, including 3m going 2.75g/t. Assays for an a further 21 holes from Turnberry are expected to land next month, in addition to more results from 17 shallow infill drillholes from St Anne’s.
Meeka’s 100 per cent-controlled pair of near-contiguous exploration licences stretch more than 281 square kilometres at the northern end of the north-south-trending Archaean Gnaweeda and Meekatharra-Wydgee greenstone belts – both forming part of the prolific Murchison goldfield.
Meeka Metals managing director Tim Davidson said: “Assays from this infill program continue to confirm, and in some places expand the broad zones of high grade gold in the Mineral Resource. Further assays are expected in December 2023, which will inform the open pit grade control model and updated production plan. We are also on track to submit the remaining development approval documentation in December 2023, further supporting the development ready status of the Murchison Project in early 2024.”
The Turnberry and St Anne’s gold deposits, separated by 7km, lie east and adjacent to the regional north-south Fairway shear zone. At Turnberry, covered by 10m to 25m of transported colluvium and deep weathering penetrating to about 100m depth, Meeka has defined widespread shallow oxide, high-grade gold mineralisation in more than a 1.7km strike and up to 350m in width at its TB North, TB Central and TB South zones.
Management says a host package of fractionated dolerite with an ultramafic base, basalt, felsic volcaniclastics and porphyry are enveloped by siliclastic sediments and shales. It believes the stratigraphy dips steeply east to vertical and isoclinal fold hinges host gold mineralisation averaging 1600 ounces per vertical metre to 200m depth.
Combining the measured resources from the Andy Well, Turnberry and St Anne’s gold deposits, a feasibility study released by Meeka earlier in July projected 663,000 ounces of recoverable gold in 9.3 years, with a net present value of $249 million, an impressive 40 per cent internal rate of return and a less than a two-year payback.
Meeka is proposing to build a stand-alone, 1-million-tonne per annum carbon-in-leach processing plant at Turnberry. Ultimately, however, the company’s development plans remain flexible and recommissioning of the existing Andy Well process plant, or toll milling at an existing nearby process facility and a concentration on higher-grade ore feed, are all leverage considerations.
Infratructure in the area is excellent, with sealed bitumen access and an airport nearby at Meekatharra. All three project areas are also held within existing mining leases.
Meeka is rapidly advancing its Murchison project to production-ready status and is no doubt kicking goals in its efforts to move quickly into production. The mission is also abetted by a timely increase in the gold price as the United States Federal Reserve contemplates reducing interest rates.
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By Rohan Halfpenny
