Bubalus inks option to acquire portfolio of Victorian gold exploration licences

The soon-to-be-acquired licences are prospective for gold and antimony mineralisation, with high grade rock chips collected at the Crosbie and Murrindindi licences
IP surveys at Crosbie have delineated priority targets for drill testing
Permitting for low impact exploration at Crosbie has been completed

Special report: Bubalus Resources has been granted an option to acquire a portfolio of exploration licences in the heart of the Victorian goldfields.

The licences include Crosbie, 18 km from Agnico Eagle’s (NYSE:AEM) Fosterville gold mine, and 20km from Mandalay Resources’ (TSX:MND) Costerfield as well as the Sunday Creek Project owned by Southern Cross Gold (ASX:SXG).

Work to date indicates significant potential for gold mineralisation to be present, supported by the geological setting, high grade gold rock chips collected from both licences, as well as targets enhanced by recent geophysical surveys at Crosbie.

Both Fosterville and Costerfield are widely accepted to be Australia’s highest grade gold mines currently operating.

At the end of last year, the Fosterville Mine had resources of 21.6Mt at an average grade of 4.28g/t gold for 3Moz of contained gold and 8.6Mt at 6.10g/t gold in proven and probable reserves.

Costerfield reported resources of 1.25Mt at an average grade of 9.8g/t gold, and 2.7% antimony with 600,000t at 10.5g/t gold and 1.9% antimony in proven and probable reserves.

The high-grade mineralisation at both assets is believed to be associated with Devonian-age intrusions, which has been demonstrated by age-dating to be present within BUS’ Crosbie project.

Permitted to drill

On another exciting note for Bubalus Resources (ASX:BUS), the vendor has carried out the required permitting to enable low impact exploration, including drilling, to be carried out at Crosbie along existing tracks on Crown Land at Crosbie.

Agreements have been reached with the native title party responsible for the Taungurung land use activity agreement (LUAA) and a private landowner, with the latter allowing drilling to be conducted across that property.

So far, field mapping and sampling at the site has identified various breccia, bladed quartz-calcite and multiple vein generations which suggest the presence of a well-developed magmatic hydrothermal fluid system at a shallow crustal level.

That exploration work yielded high-grade results up to 19.1g/t gold and 1.1% antimony from the Prince Foote Trend where two induced polarisation surveys identified chargeability anomalies from surface to depths of more than 360m.

BUS said these anomalies are coincident with the high-grade gold samples collected along the Prince Foote Trend.

3D inversion modelling has identified four chargeable and resistive features associated with previously mapped aplite dykes and gold-antimony veins, as well as high-level hydrothermal-magmatic features observed in the field resistivity modelling, indicating that potentially a large intrusive body is present.

Other licences

The Murrindindi licence covers an area of 354km2 within the Melbourne Zone of the Lachlan Orogen, about 20km east of Sunday Creek.

High-grade samples have been collected from two prospects – Higginbotham, where widespread sandstone alteration/silicification, quartz veining and brecciation were noted, and Tin Creek, where mapped metasediments are believed to be altered intrusions based on field inspection.

Bubalus believes the previously identified tin-molybdenum-tungsten occurrences may represent the alteration pattern of an intrusion-related-gold system.

The portfolio optioned by Bubalus also includes the Lockwood and Wilson’s Hill licences near Bendigo, as well as the Castleburn licence near Bairnsdale.

While these licences are not the immediate focus of exploration, they are believed to also have potential to host gold mineralisation.

The Lockwood and Wilson’s Hill licences are adjacent to tenure held by Falcon Metals (ASX: FAL) and structures hosting gold mineralisation are interpreted to trend into the licence areas.

Historical data will be reviewed and compiled to define targets within these licences.

Board changes

Bubalus has also appointed Brendan Borg as non-executive director, effective immediately.

Borg is a geologist who has specialised in the battery minerals sector and has identified numerous successful projects in an investment and/or management and operational capacity.

He has 28 years’ experience in mineral exploration, resource development, mining operations and executive management in a wide variety of mineral commodities and jurisdictions, and is currently a director of battery minerals explorer Kuniko (ASX:KNI) as well as lithium stock Leo Lithium (ASX:LLL).

Placement

Alongside the acquisition, Bubalus has raised $900,000 (before costs) by the issue of more than 8.18m shares at an issue price of 11c per share.

Directors intend to participate in the placement for a total of $210,000 through the issue of 1,909,091 shares (included in the above total).

The issue of the shares to the directors under the placement is subject to shareholder approval being obtained at a general meeting.

Funds from the placement will bring the company’s total cash balance to $3.5m, bankrolling its exploration plans at Crosbie.

Drilling getting into gear

Bubalus intends to implement a drilling programme at Crosbie South to test the geophysical targets supported by high-grade surface sampling results.

Further surface sampling and geophysical surveys are planned at Crosbie North to refine drilling target positions. Results of these initial programs will guide further work at Crosbie.

It is likely that further drilling may require environmental and other approvals, including from the Taungurung Land Council, the Department of Energy, Environment and Climate Action and Parks Victoria.

This article was developed in collaboration with Bubalus Resources, a Stockhead advertiser at the time of publishing.

This article does not constitute financial product advice. You should consider obtaining independent advice before making any financial decisions.