'Spectacular' gold hits has Troy Resources reassessing development options

Gold producer Troy Resources (ASX:TRY) has returned “spectacular” gold intercepts at the Smarts prospect within its Karouni project in Guyana, South America.

The small cap miner had previously removed the Smarts prospect from its underground mining plans after deeper drilling indicated that the geology was more complex than originally thought.

But results from its latest drill program — oriented towards the east rather than the original northeast direction to intersect the vein sets perpendicularly — could change all that.

Assays from the first drill hole have returned a top interval of 32m grading 4.29 grams per tonne (g/t) gold from a depth 168m.

That includes high-grade zones of 9m at 5.5g/t gold from 172m, and 8m at 8.33g/t gold from 190m.

It also returned deeper high-grade intervals of 11m at 12.36g/t gold from 251m.

Results of more than 5g/t are generally considered to be high-grade.

Diamond drilling at Smarts is continuing with five of the eight holes completed.

Meanwhile, drilling at the shallow Goldstar prospect to enable resources to be upgraded have returned results including 17m at 2.21g/t gold from 3m including 4m at 6.18g/t gold from 5m and 6m at 10g/t gold from 66m.

Troy produced a total of 7,295 ounces of gold during the June 2020 quarter with the company saying that it remains on track to rebuild production to normal levels.

The project has been “affected by machinery availability issues with contractor equipment, due primarily to the wet weather which requires additional maintenance and impacts efficiency”, the company says.

The $56m market cap stock nudged higher in morning trade, but is down ~12 per cent over the past 6 months.

Gold drilling continues to make waves

Shares in Dreadnought Resources (ASX:DRE) jumped 25 per cent in morning trade after the company’s follow-up drill program at the Metzke’s Find prospect within the Illaara project in WA returned high-grade gold hits.

Top results are 2m at 12.8gt gold from 51m, 8m at 8.1g/t gold from 84m and 13m at 4.2g/t gold from 48m.

Drilling tested a bend in the mineralised structure where it was interpreted that deeper historical mining may have rendered historical shallow drilling ineffective.

All holes drilled to date have intersected bedrock gold mineralisation and the lode remains open along strike and at depth.