Tesoro expands gold footprint beyond Ternera Deposit

• Tesoro Gold has identified new gold-bearing zones during exploration drilling at Ternera
• Drilling continues with a focus on expanding the 1.3Moz resource
• Two drill rigs have been deployed and will operate 24 hours per day

Special report: Exploration drilling at Tesoro Gold’s Ternera Deposit in Chile has intersected new gold-bearing zones within and extending beyond the existing 1.3Moz resource boundary.

Drilling has focused on newly identified gold extensions to the north and south of the current resource shell at Tenera within the El Zorro project.

Assay results are in for ten diamond holes – six aimed at shallow northern targets, two at recently identified southern mineralisation and two evaluating the southern strike of Ternera East zone.

The extensional and infill drilling program returned 47.6m at 1.13g/t gold from 402.60m in diamond hole ZDDH0377, which adds to and supports previous results from ZDDH00356 that hit 132.18m at 1.28g/t from 363m.

Drilling has delineated new southern gold zones while also delivering shallow intercepts in the northern extension area, highlighted by 20.9m at 1.05g/t gold from 125.10m and 0.50m at 25.70g/t from 34.7m.

‘Strong results’

Tesoro Gold (ASX:TSO) managing director Zeff Reeves said the company’s ongoing drilling program continued to confirm the presence of new mineralised zones discovered during the campaign.

“Our current aim is to achieve the necessary drill density in these areas to support their inclusion in an updated mineral resource estimate, which we are targeting for release in the coming months,” he said.

“These strong results returned from in and around Ternera do not come as a surprise to us, they continue to define new mineralised zones, adding to and supporting our geological model.”

With an additional 15,000m of drilling completed post-2023 resource definition, Reeves noted the company was well equipped to present an updated and materially enhanced resource estimate.

Drilling is continuing, with a focus on expanding the resource at the shallow northern and southern ends of the Deposit.

Watch: TSO signs MoU to light up El Zorro

Background on the Ternera Deposit

Ternera is the first intrusive-related gold (IRG) system in Chile and sits within the country’s coastal Cordillera region.

The area is host to multiple copper and gold mines, has well established infrastructure, service providers and an experienced mining workforce.

Large areas of the coastal Cordillera remain unexplored due to the unconsolidated nature of mining concession ownership, but via its in-country network and experience, TSO has been able to secure rights to the district scale El Zorro gold project in-line with the company’s strategy.

Expanded resource to capture majority of intercepts

Drilling at El Zorro will continue over the coming months, with the aim of including as many new intercepts as possible in the resource update.

Two drill rigs, operated by separate contractors have been deployed during the program to date.

In April, one rig was demobilised due to underperformance, with a replacement contractor engaged restoring full drilling capacity.

The two rigs will continue to operate 24 hours per day, 7 days per week until completion of the campaign, which is currently expected to begin in July 2025.

This article was developed in collaboration with Tesoro Gold, 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.