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Gold: Today’s most important small cap news from Riversgold, Sky, Ausmex, Navarre and Equus
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‘Minnow of the month’ Riversgold Resources (ASX:RGL) was up ~7 per cent after farming out an Alaskan project in a deal worth up to $US5m ($7.7m).
Private company Mamba Minerals can spend $US5m over three years to earn up to 70 per cent of the project, with Riversgold holding 30 per cent of the project up to ‘a decision to mine’.
Riversgold exec director Justin Boylson said the Mamba earn-in would allow the explorer to focus on its Kurnalpi gold project in the Eastern Goldfields region of WA.
Riversgold jumped 150 per cent last week when well-known mining investor Tolga Kumova joined the register as part of a $1.5m cap raise.
Follow-up drilling at the Hume gold discovery in NSW shows that the “scale of alteration and mineralisation observed is significant”, Sky Metals (ASX:SKY) says.
In February, Sky hit a massive 93m grading 4.24 grams per tonne (g/t) gold, 56m from surface, in maiden drilling at the Hume prospect, part of its Cullarin project in NSW.
It says a follow-up drilling program is well advanced with seven holes completed for 2,200m.
Assays from the first follow-up drill hole included 20m at 0.95g/t gold from 37m, including 7.3m at 2.08g/t gold from 49.3m.
Sky says this target has been identified over 650m of strike so far, with drilling indicating that mineralisation remains ‘open’ to the south and north.
Investors didn’t like the news, sending the stock down 20.7 per cent in morning trade. The stock is still up 220 per cent since early February.
READ: What do Australia’s new class of successful explorers have in common?
Queensland gold explorer Ausmex Mining (ASX:AMG) was up about 15 per cent after finally selling its non-core Gilded Rose project for $4m to a Hong Kong firm.
Ausmex, which struggled to offload the project for months, is now targeting 2020 gold production from its Mt Freda Complex.
It has an agreement with Washington H Soul Pattinson (ASX:SOL) subsidiary Round Oak Minerals to process ore at the Great Australia Mine plant in Cloncurry.
Cashed up, high flying Victorian gold explorer Navarre Minerals (ASX:NML) has poached Kirkland Lake Gold’s former VP of Australian operations, Ian Holland, as an independent non-exec director.
Under Holland’s guidance the Fosterville gold mine transitioned from ~100,000oz of gold production in 2010 to a world-class 619,400oz in 2019, following the discovery of the high-grade Eagle and Swan orebodies.
“Victoria’s gold endowment is being rediscovered by a new generation of explorers, miners and investors,” Holland says.
“It’s an exciting place and I look forward to continuing my involvement in this unfolding story of rediscovery.”
Equus Mining (ASX:EQE) has drilled ~4m at 20.4g/t gold and 55.5g/t silver at the greenfields Droughtmaster prospect, part of its flagship Cerro Bayo project in southern Chile.
This mineralisation is shallow (sub-100m) and remains ‘open’ at depth and along strike “with a potential large deeper mineralised zone it be tested with further drilling”, the company says.
“One of the unique things about the Cerro Bayo District is the near-surface, high-grade potential across a number of deposits and the flexibility that this can bring to a project,” Equus managing director John Braham says.
“Following completion of the Taitao drilling this week and the subsequent JORC resource update, the company will evaluate multiple re-start options for both open-pittable and high-grade underground resources.”
Equus, which announced the acquisition of Cerro Bayo mid last year, is up ~12 per cent in morning trade.
