Gold: Did Antipa just uncover a Haverion lookalike in the Paterson?

It’s early days, but Antipa has just made a potentially significant greenfields gold-copper discovery in the red-hot Paterson Province of WA.

The highly prospective Paterson is synonymous with ‘greenfields’, which refers to ground that has undergone minimal or no previous exploration.

Antipa (ASX:AZY) has been building a land package here since 2011, well before it was popular.

But now everyone wants a piece, thanks to the tier 1 pay dirt Rio Tinto and Newcrest/Greatland Gold are hitting at their respective Winu and Havieron discoveries.

In September, Newcrest announced some monstrous gold-copper intercepts at Havieron.

This included 43m at 7.9 grams per tonne (g/t) gold and 0.83 per cent copper, 900m from surface, and a 244.6m-long intersection grading 2g/t gold and 0.4 per cent copper from 450m.

Antipa is looking for Havieron lookalikes on its neighbouring 100 per cent-owned tenements — and the explorer may have just found one.

The company announced the discovery of multiple new copper-gold-zinc mineral systems along 1.8km of strike at four greenfields targets; Reaper, Grey, Serrano and Poblano.

Importantly, unlike that 900m-deep intercept at Havieron, Antipa is hitting mineralisation under shallow cover.

The most significant hit includes 1m at 27.4g/t gold, 0.51 per cent copper and 2.35 g/t silver inside a larger 4m intersection grading 8.1g/t gold, 0.23 per cent copper, 0.91 g/t silver — 194m from surface.

Anything above 5g/t gold is considered high grade.

And Antipa says it’s possible that Reaper ‐ Poblano – Serrano are part of the same “very large-scale mineral system”.

Is this the tier 1 discovery every Paterson Province explorer is searching for? We won’t have long to wait — follow up RC drilling of this area is planned for late October.

NOW LISTEN: The Explorers Podcast with Barry FitzGerald: Antipa Minerals

In other gold news today:

Neighbouring gold explorers Spectrum Metals (ASX:SPX) and Venus Metals (ASX:VMC) have filed appearances to the Supreme Court proceedings, first announced on October 10.

Venus Metals filed legal proceedings against fellow Youanmi explorer Spectrum, alleging it misused confidential information to acquire the historic high-grade Penny West gold mine in October 2018.

“The SPX Board strongly reiterates its view that the claim made by Venus Metals is without merit and the Company is further considering any counterclaim it may have against VMC in the circumstances,” Spectrum says.

SPX says will take all necessary steps to “expedite the proceedings with a view to the trial being listed no later than the first quarter of 2020”.

Shares in Spectrum have skyrocketed this year – from 0.5c to highs of 11c — after hitting bonanza gold grades at Penny West. Since the legal battle was announced, shares have come off about 33 per cent to 6.9c.

Venus – which is also enjoying exploration success this year — leapt on the initial legal challenge but has since pared back much of those gains. Shares now sit at 17.5c preopen – a ~10 per cent return YTD.