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Gold: Artemis moves in next door to 25moz Telfer mine

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Small cap gold stocks are scrambling to make hay while the sun shines.

At over $2000/oz, there’s only upside to bolstering their Australian portfolios with under-appreciated (but potentially lucrative) near term development projects.

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Artemis Resources (ASX:ARV) is the latest the announce a big acquisition; this time in the Paterson Province of WA.

Artemis, which recently refocussed on “near-term gold production opportunities”, will buy private WA company Rincon Resources for $2.7m.

This means Artemis’ holding within the Paterson Province will be 1,140sqkm – making the former market darling one of the largest landholders in the region.

Artemis and Rincon projects in the Paterson.

The most significant acquisition is the South Telfer project, just 12km from Newcrest’s colossal 25moz Telfer mine.

South Telfer was previously explored by Newcrest, which drilled over 200 holes for 22,000m before dropping the ground in 2002 (when the gold price was ~$550/oz).

It’s wasn’t like this was moose pasture either; Newcrest drilling returned thick intercepts like 57.80m at 2.05g/t gold from 17.40m, and 10.90m at 3.39 per cent copper from 91.80m.

“What became evident when CSA Global Consultants were completing a ‘fatal flaws model’ on the Paterson Range tenements from Rincon was that we found a significant amount of quality exploration work had already been undertaken,” Artemis  executive director Ed Mead said.

“The tenure was dropped by Newcrest in 2002 when the Telfer mine was closed and subject to a feasibility of the underground mine.

“Artemis considers this land to hold tremendous opportunity – especially as the Newcrest mine is slowing down and may be looking for new nearby ore-sources.”


 

In other ASX gold news today:

Ausgold’s (ASX:AUC) Katanning Gold Project (KGP) in WA is 1 million ounces and growing fast. New drilling has returned thick intersections like 17.6m at 2.24 grams per tonne at the Jinkas deposit – which will go a long way towards growing the existing 1.04moz KGP resource.

“The recent exploration program including the new diamond drilling and geophysics has shown potential for further high-grade mineralisation at Jinkas along strike and down dip,” Ausgold managing director Matthew Greentree says. “Further work is being undertaken to delineate gold mineralisation along the Jinkas trend and to understand controls on high-grade mineralisation. This new work has the potential to add significantly to the total gold Resources at the KGP and will have a significant impact on the overall grade of this deposit.”
 
Alt Resources (ASX:ARS) hits up to 62.9g/t gold at Tim’s Find, just 26m from surface. As a rule of thumb, anything above 5g/t is generally considered high grade. The 30,900oz Tim’s Find resource is part of the wider Mt Ida project, north of Kalgoorlie in WA. Alt chief executive James Anderson says the company is now focusing on the “development potential” of this shallow deposit.

“The Tim’s Find results support a small-scale open pit toll treatment scenario, and the Company will now consider options and costings to move Tim’s Find into production and generate a cash flow for the business,” he says.
 
Think 62.9g/t gold is good? Bardoc Gold (ASX:BDC) just hit 582g/t outside its current 2.6moz resource. The latest drill results come from the 428,000oz Zoroastrian resource, part of the Bardoc gold project near Kalgoorlie. The latest high-grade intersections are located well beyond the previously reported resource boundary, Bardoc Gold chief Robert Ryan says.

“The grade and the widths of mineralisation encountered down-plunge confirm the outstanding potential for a future underground mine at Zoroastrian,” he says. “With no drilling in the preferred host unit below these latest results, there is significant potential for the further extensions to the underground resource.”

Categories: Mining

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