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‘The system continues at depth’: Spartan pulls up visible gold, 130m below deepest assays at Never Never
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- SPR flags visible gold 576m down hole at Never Never, part of flagship Dalgaranga project
- Never Never hosts shallow, high grade 721koz resource near existing 2.5Mt processing facility
- Company confident of growth potential down-plunge below resource
- Resource drilling program now expanded from 25,000m to 32,000m
Spartan Resources has logged visible gold 130m below the deepest previous assays at the game changing Never Never discovery, part of its Dalgaranga gold project in WA.
Spartan’s revitalisation of the Dalgaranga gold operation has been underpinned by the exceptional high-grade Never Never discovery, made last year just 1km from the existing 2.5Mtpa carbon-in-leach processing facility.
Latest results from an ongoing, extensive 32,000m drilling campaign are potentially adding ounces left, right and centre to Never Never as Spartan looks to upgrade its 3.83Mt @ 5.85g/t 721,200oz resource.
Spartan Resources (ASX:SPR) says a new, deepest-ever intercept is 576m down-hole, which highlights substantial growth potential down-plunge below the current high-grade resource.
Notably, the visible gold find comes just a week after the company announced a new gold discovery, called ‘Patient Wolf’, at Never Never which returned a massive 10m at 19.84g/t gold from 96m.
This ongoing drilling success has sparked a 280% increase in the share price year-to-date.
Potential large system at depth
The visible gold was logged 130m down-plunge of the deepest previously reported Never Never assays in drill-hole DGRC1283-DT, which returned 18.56m at 6.71g/t, including 2.56m at 32.19g/t, from 495.00m down-hole.
“We are very excited to see bold step-out drilling at depth continuing to expand the Never Never deposit down-plunge, with our deepest ever visible gold intercept logged in DGRC1305-DT,” MD and CEO Simon Lawson said.
“This is a very exciting development for our team which shows that the system continues at depth – and we are very much looking forward to receiving the assays for this important hole.”
“The fact we are still hitting highly mineralised intercepts and good widths at the very leading edge of our resource shows that Never Never is still very much open at depth.
“We have systematically stepped down on this orebody – learning, adjusting and refining – and each one of these deeper visible gold holes has given us the confidence to drill beyond and keep growing this spectacular high-grade system.
“From surface, Never Never has been continuous, consistently high-grade and always full of intrigue.
“We are now well below 500m from surface.”
Assays are expected withing the next 14 days.
In-fill drilling critical to mine design
To date, ongoing diamond in-fill drilling at Never Never has also returned 7m at 34.34g/t gold from 372m, including 1m at 95.90g/t and 2.52m at 49.50g/t (DGRC1276-DT).
In addition, ‘Edge’ diamond drilling defining the extents of the Never Never Deposit has also returned:
- 3.20m at 7.95g/t gold from 310.30m, including 1m at 12.29g/t (DGRC1271-DT); and
- 2.43m at 4.89g/t gold from 377m (DGRC1276-DT).
“We also continue to progress the in-fill and edge definition of our flagship high-grade deposit,” Lawson said.
“This information is critical to our mine design and planning efforts as we seek to understand the geometry and potential volume of high-grade ounces and define the economic parameters of this exciting open-pit and underground opportunity.”
Resource update expected in Q4
In February, the company secured a landmark $50 million funding package to underpin an 18-month exploration and strategic plan targeting:
- A +300koz reserve at a grade exceeding 4.0g/t Au at Never Never;
- A +600koz resource at a grade exceeding 5.0g/t Au at Never Never; and
- The development of a 5-year mine plan aimed at delivering gold production of 130-150koz per annum.
The Spartan board has now approved an increase of 7,000m and two additional rigs to the previously planned 25,000m 4-rig program.
This brings total number of active rigs to six, comprising a mix of four diamond rigs and two RC rigs with a new total planned metreage of 32,000m.
The company will now accelerate planned resource diamond drilling across multiple high-grade targets, including Never Never, Four Pillars and West Winds along with a dedicated RC rig at the new Patient Wolf prospect for a 1,500m follow up program.
The ultimate aim is to deliver the scheduled resource update for the project in Q4 2023 which will grow Spartan’s high-grade resource inventory within a 2km radius of the 2.5Mtpa Dalgaranga process plant.
This article was developed in collaboration with Spartan Resources, 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.
