Special Report: Syndicated Metals may have dropped off the investor radar in recent times but now it’s ready to show off its new gold project. 

Junior explorer Syndicated Metals (ASX:SMD), with a market capitalisation of just $4 million, has been in “project generation” mode for much of the past year after successfully divesting its large portfolio of Queensland copper assets through a series of deals (the most recent with rebadged explorer Berkut Minerals) and repositioning itself as a WA gold company.

The 2016 acquisition of the Monument Gold project, located next door to Dacian Gold’s (ASX: DCN) 3Moz Mount Morgans gold operation, provided the initial focus in WA for Syndicated, and resulted in the definition of an initial 50,000oz gold resource.

While Monument remains a high-quality opportunity which it will continue to progress, Syndicated has been in the hunt for other gold assets to add to its portfolio, led by a management team that includes former Equigold mining executive David Morgan, former Jubilee Mines and WMC geologist Peter Langworthy.

Yesterday it told shareholders with news that it had put its foot on what it describes as an “outstanding new growth opportunity” in Western Australia’s Eastern Goldfields.

Syndicated has pulled off not one, but two, acquisition deals simultaneously – a farm-in agreement over the advanced Newfield gold project and a separate option agreement over the Carterton gold project, both located at the northern end of the Southern Cross Greenstone Belt around 380km east of Perth in WA.

It’s getting hotter in Southern Cross

The Newington Project lies at the northern end of the Southern Cross Greenstone Belt, which hosts more than 150 known gold deposits which have collectively produced more than 15 million ounces of gold.

The area has been in the headlines of late thanks to a spate of consolidation activity including Ramelius Resources’ (ASX: RMS) major acquisitions in the area around its operating Edna May Gold Mine – including the 1Moz Tampia Hill Project (acquired through its takeover of Explaurum Ltd) and the 0.5Moz Marda Gold Project.

Syndicated managing director David Morgan says the acquisitions will give Syndicated a “commanding position” in this highly prospective part of the world-class Yilgarn Craton with walk-up drilling targets and a strong pipeline of promising exploration targets and opportunities.

“We spent a huge amount of time reviewing many projects and, I think it’s fair to say that there wasn’t a lot out there that ticked our boxes,” he said.

“There’s a lot of recycled projects out there and, when you work through the list of what’s available, there’s actually not much that would fit the profile and funding capability of a junior explorer like Syndicated.

“We believe the combination of Newfield with the Carterton exploration tenure – to form the Newington gold project – is a compelling opportunity which offers both near-term resource definition opportunities and belt-scale exploration upside.

Regional Location of the Newington Gold Project (Supplied)

A high-grade gold project with big potential

“We were specifically looking for large areas of largely unexplored Archean Greenstone Belt that also had strong indications of the potential for development of high-grade gold systems – and this part of the Southern Cross Greenstone Belt certainly fits the bill perfectly,” Morgan said.

“The northern extension of the Southern Cross Greenstone Belt is a very interesting area for us for a number of reasons,” he continued.

“To put it in perspective, it’s important to remember that the southern 75 per cent of the Belt has a gold endowment of +15Moz of gold, while the northern 25 per cent currently lacks any major discovery.

“We see a great opportunity to be the company that makes that discovery.”

“The production history and existing drilling data from the Newfield prospects indicates the presence of a high-grade gold system.

This is demonstrated by historical production from the Newfield Central deposit of 41,039 tonnes at a recovered grade of 24.53 g/t Au for 32,366 recovered gold ounces.

The high-grade gold mineralisation at the Newfield prospect remains open in all directions and drilling has also identified the potential for parallel and cross-linking structures.

Previous drilling 20m below the existing workings returned high-grade intercepts including an assay result of 6m at 6.24g/t.

The tenement package also contains multiple prospects on granted Mining Leases, with numerous walk-up drilling targets with historical ore grade intercepts within a 1km radius of the historical mine.

“Add to all of this the belt-scale exploration potential within the large, high-quality tenement package located along strike and you have a fantastic long-term growth opportunity for Syndicated in one of Australia’s most prospective yet under-explored greenstone belts,” Morgan added.

This story was developed in collaboration Syndicated Metals, a Stockhead advertiser at the time of publishing.
This advice has been prepared without taking into account your objectives, financial situation or needs. You should, therefore, consider the appropriateness of the advice, in light of your own objectives, financial situation or needs, before acting on the advice. If this advice relates to the acquisition, or possible acquisition, of a particular financial product, the recipient should obtain a disclosure document, a Product Disclosure Statement or an offer document (PDS) relating to the product and consider the PDS before making any decision about whether to acquire the product.

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