Explorer Artemis has identified seven “high priority” targets at the Armada project in the Paterson Province of WA – three of these are immediately north of the huge Havieron gold-copper discovery.

Once upon a time, investor money was swarming all over conglomerate gold explorers in the Pilbara and companies like Artemis (ASX:ARV) were much-loved by the market.

In fact, it was Artemis and Canadian partner Novo Resources which probably sparked the Pilbara gold rush after uncovering “watermelon seed nuggets” south of Karratha in July 2017.

Conglomerate gold has proved a complete fizzer so far, because drilling the nuggs and delineating resources is proving tougher than originally thought.

Artemis’ share price has fallen 95 per cent from a November 2017 peak of ~52c to the current 2.2c.


Yet, this much smaller, more streamlined company has other interesting irons in the fire going into 2020.

This includes its dominant landholding in the Paterson Province, particularly those tenements right next door to the mammoth Greatland Gold/Newcrest Mining (ASX:NCM) gold-copper discovery at Havieron.

READ: Newcrest reignites Paterson Province with mammoth gold-copper intersection at Havieron

Literally, right next door:

Cosy.

Which is handy, because it looks like Havieron mineralisation is ‘open’ to the north “significantly elevating the prospectivity” of Artemis’ Kzinti target, only ~1.2 km away.

Newcrest has six drill rigs on site at Havieron and continues to drill towards Artemis’ tenement boundary, the company says.

“A Program of Work (PoW) application has been lodged for approval to drill these seven priority targets, subject to heritage surveys being conducted,” Artemis exec director Ed Mead says.

“Further work will assess the best path forward and further drill results from Havieron will provide more information to generate better target selection.”

The issue will be the cost of drilling. Artemis expects these targets are +500m below surface, and some of the intercepts at Havieron – while exciting – are almost 1km deep.

A single hole can cost many hundreds of thousands of dollars, a potential problem for any cash strapped explorer.

Artemis was contacted for additional comment.

 

In other ASX gold news today:

Chalice Gold Mines (ASX:CHN) says a new +2km gold trend at Karri, part of the Pyramid Hill project in Victoria, could be “a significant gold system”.

An initial diamond drill hole will be completed at Karri in late January 2020, in parallel with an ongoing phase 2 aircore drill program.

Unlike air core, diamond preserves the drill core like this:

Diamond core from Spectrum’s (ASX:SPX) Penny North project.

… which helps the explorer understand what the underlying geology is doing for future, more targeted exploration.

“We knew from the outset that this target had all the hallmarks of a significant gold system, and we are optimistic that we are on track to make a gold discovery,” Chalice managing director Alex Dorsch says.

“We eagerly await the commencement of our first diamond drill program in January and look forward to releasing more drill results over the next few months.”

READ: Who’s close to uncovering the next Nova or Fosterville?