Gold: Explorer Tesoro leaps ~60pc after uncovering El Zorro’s true identity

Tesoro has hit a best-ever 23m grading ~7 grams pet tonne (g/t) gold, supporting a theory that the flagship El Zorro project in Chile contains “multiple stacked gold zones, increasing in grade as they go deeper”.

Plukka — former online jewellery seller/shell company — transformed itself into Chilean gold explorer Tesoro Resources (ASX:TSO) earlier this year.

This reverse takeover just had its first major win at El Zorro, the flagship project Tesoro calls an “emerging, district-scale gold system” in the coastal Cordillera region.

As a private company, Tesoro had already defined a solid gold zone from surface at the historical artisanal mining area of Coquetas.

The company’s current 10-hole drilling program plans to extend this mineralised zone to +800m strike length and up to 300m deep.

The first hole has hit two gold zones already, the company says. Wide, high-grade assay results have been received for part of the hole, including 23m at 7.2g/t, 183m from surface.

Grades are getting higher as the hole gets deeper, the company says.

This lower zone of gold remains ‘open’, the company says. Three holes are now completed, with assays expected in the coming weeks.

“These assay results are exceptional and are to date the best gold results we have encountered in drilling at El Zorro,” managing director Zeff Reeves says.

“The wide, high-grade nature of the results received so far demonstrate the huge potential El Zorro has to host a significant gold deposit and confirms our geological model of multiple stacked gold mineralised zones that are increasing in grade as they go deeper.

“We have now completed three holes of the current program and have stepped to the north in order to extend the current drilled mineralised zone by an additional 250m from where we are intersecting the host El Zorro tonalite.”

Tesoro was up 58.8 per cent to 2.7c per share in early trade.