Everest Metals has a clear path to early cash flow from its gold projects and defining a potential company maker at the Mt Edon rubidium project. Pic: Getty Images
Mining
Gold has long been a staple for junior and major mining companies alike, and for good reason given that it is a remarkable store of value in hard times and even small deposits can be commercialised under the right conditions.
This ability to achieve early cash flow is one of the things that Mark Caruso-chaired Everest Metals Corporation (ASX:EMC) is looking to achieve with its gold projects in Western Australia.
Caruso is of course an industry veteran with a strong track record who has been successful in building multiple gold, mineral sand and graphite mines all over the world over many years.
As such, he is acutely aware of the need to instil operation ability – be it geological, operational or market facing – in junior miners to set them apart from their peers.
HIs experience has also meant that the company has kept itself busy while keeping a tight rein on cash, allowing it to make significant advances with its Revere, Mt Dimer Taipan and Mt Edon projects over the last 18 months.
So just what makes its projects stand out?
FIrst off the rank is the Revere gold project just off the Great Northern Highway around 90km northeast of Meekatharra in WA’s Murchison region.
The 171km2 project sits along an inferred extension of the Andy Well Greenstone Shear System, which also hosts the DeGrussa and Monty copper-gold mines along strike about 55km to the northeast.
It includes a system of richly endowed gold reefs – the Revere Reef system – that surface over a strike of 7km and has a long history of alluvial mining.
While no resource has been defined to date, the project does have a exploration target of 2.5Mt to 4.1Mt at grades of between 1g/t and 2.5g/t gold, or up to 334,000oz of contained gold.
Additionally, assaying of recent blast holes undertaken as part of its 36,000t bulk sampling program returned bonanza grade results of up to 1m at 97g/t gold.
When combined with historical high-grade mineralisation results that have been reconciled to grades of between 17g/t and 325g/t gold, this is expected to deliver a significant maiden inferred resource with the potential that some of it might be in the higher confidence indicated category.
EMC intends to put the bulk sample through a modular Gekko processing plant, which based on previous metallurgical testing is expected to produce gold bars.
Speaking to Stockhead, chief operating officer Simon Phillips noted that the current bulk sampling program is consistent with previous smaller programs and prove that the company is a very high grade, highly mineralised area for gold.
“We have got an exploration target of 334,000oz that we are trying to achieve out of bulk sampling program plus a little bit more work,” he said.
“And with the nature of the high grade gold, we have got a strong possibility of this program being income accretive to our bank account over the next two-three months.”
Phillips added that the company has been negotiating with owner of the Gekko plant, which is a gravity fed processing plant, for the last 9-10 months regarding its lease.
“It has been prepared by the owner. We will mobilise that to site over the next month or so.”
The company also has some near-term production potential at the Mt Dimer Taipan gold project about 125km northeast of Southern Cross that contains a resource of 722,000t grading 2.1g/t gold and 3.84g/t silver, for contained resources of 48,545oz gold and 89,011oz of silver.
Historical open cut mining at the Mt Dimer mining lease to a depth of ~50m in the 1990s produced ~8500oz of gold.
At current gold prices, Phillips is confident that a short campaign at the project will deliver significant profits thanks to its grade, the existing mining lease and several toll treatment options.
“So when we finish the bulk sampling program at Revere, we will come back to Mt Dimer and lodge a mining proposal, that’s our gold plan,” he added.
While gold offers EMC the promise of early cash flow, the Mt Edon project in WA’s Mid-West is a company-maker in its own right.
Mt Edon hosts an extensive field of pegmatites. But rather than the lithium, tin, tantalum, rubidium and niobium mineralisation that is typically found in this type of rock, the project is prospective for rubidium.
Designated a critical mineral by the US Government Geological Survey due to its uses in biomedical research, electronics, specialty glass, pyrotechnics and as well as military industrial applications, rubidium carbonate commands a lordly price of ~US$1200/kg.
And with an exploration target of between 3.2Mt and 4.5Mt at 0.23% to 0.35% rubidium, EMC is sitting on a pretty significant resource.
“The challenge for most people is that they don’t know much about the rubidium market as it is a niche market,” Phillips said.
“The Mt Edon system is a monster, it probably has one of the highest – if not the highest – grade standalone rubidium systems in the world on a mining lease close to infrastructure.
“Our aim is to create a product out of the rubidium, probably a concentrate and our international industry sources tell us that although the market is small, the issue is not demand, it is supply.
“Supply of rubidium is very small and usually it is a byproduct of lepidolite mineralisation.”
To help achieve this goal, the company has a joint venture with Edith Cowan University’s highly-experienced Mineral Recovery Research Centre to develop a state-of-the-art extraction technique that maximises the recovery of rubidium and mica in a sustainable and environmentally friendly manner.
EMC has also just completed Phase 1 resource drilling that is aimed at defining a maiden inferred resource for Mt Edon.
Each of the 14 holes in the program intersected pegmatite bodies with highlights including 125m hit from surface, 89m from 34m depth, and 89m from 37m to end of hole.
Besides its gold and rubidium assets, EMC also has its fingers in other commodity pies.
Revere for instance isn’t just all about gold. The project also hosts a massive, deep VHMS/SEDEX-style base metals system.
This was identified by a six diamond and RC hole program which targeted a strong VTEM conductor and intersected sulphide mineralisation in each of the holes that were drilled over a 8.5km target area.
Phillips noted that the company was focused on the gold at the moment and would look at other options for the deeper base metals mineralisation.
EMC also holds a large +10,000km2 tenement package – the Amadeus and Georgina project – in the Northern Territory that is highly prospective for uranium and base metals.
While Phillips expects the company to release news about what it is planning to do with this project, he flagged that the company was looking at options including a potential spin-out.
At Stockhead we tell it like it is. While Everest Metals Corporation is a Stockhead advertiser, it did not sponsor this article.
