In gold this morning — Newcrest is keeping the Paterson Province buzz alive, as explorers Consolidated Zinc and Focus Minerals unveil some big hits in Mexico and WA, respectively.

Major miner Newcrest Mining (ASX:NCM) plans to complete 20km to 30km of drilling at Havieron in the next two quarters and possibly deliver a resource estimate by the end of the year.

The Havieron project — 45km east of Telfer in the Paterson Province of WA — is centred on a large, deep magnetic anomaly which is covered by more than 420m of boring dirt.

It’s a good thing Newcrest has a lot of cash in the bank — it produced 551,000oz in the December quarter — because that 420m of dirt also makes Haverion pretty expensive to explore.

Newcrest and AIM-listed partner Greatland Gold kicked off drilling during the June 2019 quarter. By mid-December it had increased drilling activity to six rigs at once.

This drilling continues to expand the high-grade gold-copper mineralisation, which is now over 450m long, up to 150m wide, and in excess of 600m in vertical extent.

Mineralisation remains open to the north west and at depth.

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

These results at Havieron signal the real potential for renewal of Newcrest’s asset portfolio in the Paterson region, Newcrest boss Sandeep Biswas says.

“The grades we are seeing are unique for this region and we are excited to progress and accelerate our evaluation of this opportunity,” he says.

“The results vindicate our strategy of searching deep undercover and, when combined with our ability to efficiently mine deep ore bodies in a cost-effective manner, demonstrates our unique capability in the industry.”

NOW READ: Drilling at Newcrest’s mammoth Haverion discovery is getting super close to Artemis’ project boundary

 

 

This morning’s big hits:

Consolidated Zinc (ASX:CZL) has uncovered high-grade gold near its current zinc-lead-silver mining operations at Plomosas, Mexico.

First-pass surface sampling returned grades up to 61 grams per tonne (g/t) (that’s high), part of what Consolidated believes is “an additional gold mineralised system” in the project area.

Exploration on these gold targets will be prioritised, the company says. Investors liked the news, sending the stock up 20 per cent to 0.9c per share in early trade.

READ: These are the ASX mining small caps Stephen Copulos is backing

 

WA explorer Focus Minerals (ASX:FML) has hit shallow, high-grade gold — like 4m at 21.69g/t from 28m – at Beasley Creek South (BCS), part of its flagship Laverton gold project.

BCS is only 400m from the main ~192,000oz Beasley Creek deposit and the area between the two is “considered effectively untested”. Follow-up diamond drilling at BCS has already kicked off, Focus chief exec Zhaoya Wang says.

“Our focus now is to prioritise resource drilling of this exciting new target to deliver a maiden mineral resource at BCS this year, which could potentially strengthen Laverton’s stage one production portfolio,” he says.

Focus – which is up almost 30 per cent over the past 12 months – nudged 8.7 per cent higher to 25c per share in morning trade.

READ: Focus upgrades Karridale resource to 672koz, but it’s just the beginning