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Pilbara gold story picks up pace as De Grey starts drilling at Blue Moon
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The next stage of the Pilbara gold story is unfolding with De Grey Mining starting to drill the “main gold nugget trend” at the Blue Moon prospect.
There has been a renaissance in the gold space in Western Australia ever since Canada’s Novo Resources and its Australian partner Artemis Resources began finding ‘watermelon seed’ sized nuggets at their Purdy’s Reward project in the Pilbara in July.
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De Grey now wants to see exactly what it is sitting on. It plans to drill a total of 2000 metres across 24 holes, lying along a 1km strike discovered by the owners of the tenement in October.
“There are not many projects where you are drilling the first ever holes beneath such a strong zone of gold nuggets found at surface,” operations manager Andy Beckwith said.
Investors shrugged off the news this morning, with the company’s share price down 1.7 per cent at 17.2c.
De Grey’s shares have soared since September, hitting a 52-week high of 38c in mid-November — up from a low of 3c.
Drilling is targeting a North East trending structure that occurs along the South Eastern margin of a “relatively massive” structure, where over 1500 ounces of gold has already been recovered.
Three drill holes have been completed so far and have intersected ultramafic rocks hosting variable zones of quartz veining with associated pyrite.
The quartz and pyrite association is similar to many other gold deposits already defined within the greater Pilbara gold project, De Grey noted.
The company holds an option to acquire 70 per cent of the Blue Moon tenement, which lies within 20km of the proposed processing plant at De Grey’s Pilbara project.
De Grey will fund exploration during the two-year option period and can acquire the majority interest in the mineral rights below 6m by paying $500,000.
Blue Moon is considered highly prospective for structurally controlled high-grade gold discoveries in the basement rocks.
De Grey picked up the option as part of its strategy to find additional high-grade gold resources for its Pilbara project.
Drilling is expected to take seven to 10 days, with final results expected in January.
De Grey was unavailable for comment.
