After locking in a couple of major project acquisitions that consolidate its foothold on the north-eastern flank of the Yandal-Millrose greenstone belt in WA’s north-eastern Goldfields, Strickland Metals has cranked up a massive systematic initial exploration campaign across its expanded ground position. The ASX-listed junior gold and base metals explorer says its current gravity survey and surface geochemical programs will pave the way for about 100,000m of aircore drilling and 30,000m of reverse circulation drilling.
The drilling is planned for between this quarter and the end of next year as the company looks to unlock value in the gold-rich Yandal district.
According to Perth-based Strickland, a preliminary set of results from the recently commenced gravity geophysical surveying – being undertaken at a spacing of 200m – point to the auriferous Celia shear structure in the southern part of its Horse Well gold project that has not been adequately tested by prior drilling.
Horse Well hosts an existing inferred mineral resource of 5.72 million tonnes at an average grade of 1.4 grams per tonne gold for 257,000 ounces of contained gold made up of the 108,900-ounce Dusk Til Dawn deposit and multiple Horse deposits, which straddle the same shear zone.
Strickland says the Celia shear structure has been traced by the gravity work trending northwards from the existing combined Horse inferred resource of 148,100 ounces.
A first-up round of aircore drilling totalling about 10,000m designed to test this part of the Celia structure north of the Horse deposits is slated to start in coming weeks.
The larger 100,000m aircore program will be aimed at probing about 80km of the Celia shear zone and kick off in earnest in about three months.
The company says the drilling will be conducted on an initial wide-spaced, 800m-by-200m grid with follow-up infill drilling to be carried out if required.
Strickland Metals Chief Executive Officer Andrew Bray said: “The aircore program to commence immediately to the north of the Horse prospects represents some low hanging fruit for us to initially test. Although there has been some very limited historic RAB drilling in the area, the gravity results show that this drilling did not test the main gold structure.”
Strickland late last month entered into an agreement to acquire the Millrose gold project from Millrose Gold Mines and Golden Eagle Mining for $10 million in staged payments.
Millrose comes with an indicated and inferred mineral resource estimate of 6Mt grading an average 1.8 g/t for 346,000 ounces of contained gold.
It boosts Strickland’s global gold resource inventory in the north-eastern flank of the Yandal-Millrose greenstone belt to 603,000 ounces and tenement holdings in the area to almost 2,000 square kilometres.
To fund the Millrose deal, the company has shaken the tin and received firm commitments for a large chunk of a planned $12 million capital raise, consisting of an $8 million share placement and $4 million non-renounceable rights issue.
Millrose, which sits about 30km east of Northern Star Resources’ 10-million-ounce-plus Jundee gold operation, adjoins the former Renegade Exploration tenement package that Strickland also picked up recently.
The company purchased Renegade’s 75 per cent interest in the Yandal East gold project for 40 million new Strickland shares and $800,000 cash and the new tenure extends the prospective mineralised strike length along the regional Celia shear zone that its exploration licences cover by 60km to more than 100km.
Strickland management says the north-eastern portion of the Yandal belt is significantly under-explored and that its forthcoming drilling blitz will be the “first time ever this part of the (Yandal) belt has been subject to substantial systematic exploration” despite the tier one region’s gold endowment and regional geology.
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By Matt Birney
