Gold minnow Echo Resources jumps 30 per cent after upgrade

Gold minnow Echo Resources jumped 30 per cent today after a significant upgrade to the mineral resource at its Orelia deposit in the Yandal greenstone belt, Western Australia.

The Perth-based company (ASX:EAR) was trading as high as 18.5c in afternoon trade before cooling to 17c at the close with 10.2 million shares changing hands.

The mineral resource estimate at Orelia has increased to 15.9Mt at 2.1g/t for 1.1 Million ounces of gold. This compares to the previous estimate of 5.6Mt at 1.9 g/t for 350,000 ounces.

Some 90 per cent or 980,000 ounces of gold is in the higher quality indicated category.

The result has increased the global resource base to 1.7 million ounces of gold.

Echo’s CEO Simon Coxhell expects Orelia will continue to grow.

“We continue to expect that the Orelia system has the ability to substantially grow to depths beyond those mined at the nearby Lotus gold deposit, and drilling is currently underway to further test the extent of the mineralisation,” he said.

The deposit remains open at depth and along strike with further drilling currently underway.

Orelia lies just 10 kilometres south-west of Echo’s Bronzewing Processing Hub in the North Eastern Goldfields of Western Australia.

Since the late 1980’s, it has produced around 400,000 ounces. It was last mined in 2013 and treated through the Bronzewing processing plant which is now wholly-owned by Echo.

Echo currently has a market cap of around $39 million.