Gold explorer Latitude Consolidated (ASX: LCD) has demonstrated the value of unconventional thinking, with a zag at its Andy Well gold mine pointing the way to a new discovery. 

Latitude has been thinking outside the square since acquiring Andy Well for $8 million from Silver Lake Resources in December.

The Murchison mine was opened by Doray Minerals (which later merged with Silver Lake), in 2013, and was at the time one of the best new gold discoveries in several years.

It was shut in 2017 amid lower gold prices, a big debt burden and the need for Doray to redirect capital to its growing Deflector gold mine.

Doray left behind 1.8Mt at 8.7g/t for 505,000oz, but also – it seems – a number of promising exploration targets, one being the Suzie North discovery announced today.

Doray identified Suzie North in a diamond drill hole in 2013, around 130m below surface, but abandoned the prospect after follow-up drilling was unable to replicate the initial hit.

Now some exploration nous from Latitude has renewed its interest in the target, which was interpreted like the rest of Andy Well’s high grade lodes to strike north-east to south-west.

Latitude has turned the drills around, with a new RC assay showing a hit of 7m at 1.90g/t gold from 121m, including 1m @ 9.59g/t.

Other results, while not showing evidence of primary mineralisation, appear to have struck low-grade mineralisation in a footwall zone, a style of gold occurrence known to exist perpendicular to other high-grade lodes at Andy Well.

Latitude boss excited by discovery

Suzie North remains open at all sides, and Latitude has wasted little time hunting its new target, with a drill rig remobilised to begin a 1500m program looking further along the strike and down-dip.

CEO Tim Davidson noted the same structural re-interpretation had delivered major discoveries across the Murchison and Yilgarn goldfields.

“This is an extremely exciting step forward for Latitude with the newly identified northwest-southeast mineralisation providing a new exploration targeting lens at Andy Well,” he said.

“The company notes there have been several major discoveries recently, both in the Murchison and other parts of the Yilgarn, where a new strike orientation has been identified and the resulting discoveries have been found to host significant mineralisation.

“We plan to test this potential at our Murchison Gold Project as we push ahead with the Phase 2 exploration program.

“Importantly with the support of our shareholders we have the funding in place to complete this work at an aggressive pace with a strong cash balance of ~$9.5M at the date of this announcement.

“We are expecting further assays to be received from drilling completed at several promising exploration targets within our portfolio and I look forward to reporting further updates in due course.”

Murchison goldfield a fertile hunting ground for Latitude

Latitude has already demonstrated that plenty of gold has been left in the ground at its Murchison gold project.

Among its findings since taking over the site has been a 44% increase in resources to 1.1Moz, substantially driven by a 125% increase of the shallow, open pittable Turnberry deposit at the Gnaweeda satellite deposit.

That update also highlighted the refreshed Latitude’s growing reputation to challenge conventional wisdom.

The Turnberry resource had previously been constrained by the idea that whatever was mined had to fit through the tightly-constrained Andy Well mill – designed to churn out as much of the high-grade underground Andy Well reserves for the lowest possible tonnage.

Freed from this logic, Latitude has been able to demonstrate the exploration and broader scale potential of its newly-acquired project.

On the back of the early findings from Andy Well, Latitude is awaiting assays on drilling in the 5.5km structural corridor between Turnberry and the St Anne’s prospect to the south, where previous results have included 20m at 2.4g/t and 15m at 1.5g/t.

 

 

This article was developed in collaboration with Latitude Consolidated, a Stockhead advertiser at the time of publishing.

 

This article does not constitute financial product advice. You should consider obtaining independent advice before making any financial decisions.

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