Artemis is looking to build mighty gold fortifications in the Pilbara with its hunt for repeats of its Carlow Castle deposit. Pic: Getty Images
How many Carlow Castles can Artemis find?
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- Artemis believes the Carlow project could host undiscovered gold deposits similar to De Grey’s large, intrusion-related Hemi project
- Rather than build on its large 704,000oz gold equivalent resource, it’s hoping to uncover more Carlows across its landholding
- The company is looking to punch holes into targets next year
Artemis Resources may have helped start the Pilbara gold rush in 2017, but it’s the underexplored riches of its 205km2 landholding near Karratha that are behind its belief that those days are far from over.
Western Australia’s Pilbara region is known to host orogenic gold deposits, and the area became a growing hotspot for high-grade conglomerate gold exploration, with some geologists comparing the geology to South Africa’s Kaapvaal Craton and Witwatersrand Basin.
Witwatersrand is the world’s leading source of gold, holding the largest reserves and producing more than 40% of supply with rocks in the Pilbara conveying similar characteristics such as age and composition.
A pegging rush took off after Artemis (ASX:ARV) and former JV partner,Novo Resources (ASX:NVO), discovered near-surface gold nuggets over significant strike lengths at Purdy’s Reward, south of the regional hub of Karratha.
Juniors like Kairos Minerals (ASX:KAI) and DGO Gold followed suit and all had a good crack, but it was De Grey (ASX:DEG) – now the subject of a $5bn scrip takeover bid from Northern Star (ASX:NST) – that ended up finding the prize at its massive Hemi project, an intrusion-hosted find new to the region and distinct from the ‘conglomerate’ gold explorers had been chasing.
Holding close to 11Moz of gold, a DFS released in September last year flagged the Hemi deposit as a future top 5 Aussie gold mine, forecasting a 530,000ozpa run rate over just the first decade of production, which is set to begin in 2026.
It’s now a template for exploration success for other juniors to follow.
Neighbours with market darling De Grey
Artemis’ Carlow Castle deposit, part of the wider Karratha gold project, is ~105km from Hemi and located within a series of shear zones along the margin of the Regal Thrust Fault within the Roebourne Complex.
Exploration efforts have so far resulted in the definition of a 704,000oz gold equivalent resource at 2.5g/t AuEq, but ARV managing director George Ventouras reckons there could more Carlows lurking under the surface.
“We’ve decided to take the exploration pathway a little differently than before,” he told Stockhead.
“Rather than look at the Carlow resource and say ‘how big can we get it’ and build on it, we’re asking ‘how many Carlows can we find in that same area’ because our neighbour across the road – De Grey – has not one big pit, but a series of smaller pits which total more than 12 million ounces of gold,” he said.
“Given where we’ve seen gold, we are wondering if we might have something similar – it is still early days and De Grey themselves are still trying to understand what their geology and mineralisation is.”
Ventouras said due to the great variety of structures and faults in the area, it is difficult to predict where the gold might be.
“There is an old saying in the industry ‘gold is where you find it’ because you just don’t know where it might be and while the ground may not geologically make sense, there’s still a chance you can find it.
“Both Hemi and Carlow Castle sit above a major shear zone and when you look at these episodes from our ground to their ground, you can see some similarities going on,” he said.”
Boots on the ground
The discovery of intrusion related gold systems are relatively new to the Pilbara region and shows a scale of mineralisation not previously encountered.
Within these deposits, gold mineralisation is primarily situated within a sequence of intrusions, notably associated with stringer, and disseminated sulphide-rich zones.
Artemis’ exploration strategy is to use industry best techniques such as geochemical and geophysical surveys combined with structural interpretations to identify targets within what the company considers to be a wide, highly prospective and underexplored structural corridor.
So far, these tools have been used to uncover several prospects including Chapman, Thorpe, Titan, Carlow North, Marillion FLTEM, Europa Gravity and Lulu Creek.
“We’re taking a step back, looking for outcropping rocks that may be prospective for gold and have sampled a lot of those areas, which are only a couple kilometres from Carlow,” Ventouras said.
Recent rock chip samples at the Thorpe prospect delivered grades up to 45.8g/t gold and 10.3% copper within two structures, further increasing the surface gold footprint of the Carlow tenement.
In October, surface sampling assays at the Titan prospect returned more than 55% gold and 1,000g/t silver, highlighting the emergence of a prospective area covering >63ha and considered to be open pending more exploration.
Exploration upside
“We are finding all this gold in probably only half of the Carlow tenement, which is about 30km,” Ventouras said.
“We have the other half of that tenement plus another 170km2 that we’ve yet to fully get into.
“There’s a huge amount of upside and our plans next year (are) to drill about three of four of these targets, work out what is going on and how far the gold goes or doesn’t go,” he said.
“If it goes, then we will increase those drilling programs at those prospects while also conducting work across other areas and prospects to bring those up to drill ready status.”
M&A activity in the North Pilbara corridor
While Artemis’ portfolio includes other assets such as the Mt Marie lithium project and Osborne JV, the company’s focus for the time being rests on discovering more gold at Carlow.
“What excites me the most about the Karratha gold project is the amount of visible gold we are seeing, which could potentially indicate we are sitting on something fairly substantial,” Ventouras said.
“Companies are starting to develop the North Pilbara gold corridor where there has been around 20Moz of gold discovered to date with opportunities for further discoveries on our ground and on other areas.”
Artemis’ rejuvenated approach to Carlow comes with gold prices riding high at US$2700/oz (~$4250/oz), sparking a rush of M&A targeting companies with ounces in the ground.
“The other exciting element is the potential for M&A activity in the area with Northern Star entering the scene via their takeover of De Grey and they might look to increase their footprint,” he said.
“From that side of things, 2025 could be really exciting, particularly if the gold price remains high.”
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