Special Report: Two drilling rigs are spinning ahead of another resource upgrade planned for later in 2021 at Saturn Metals’ (ASX:STN) flagship 944,000oz Apollo Hill project in WA.

In late January Saturn increased resources at Apollo Hill by 21 per cent to 944,000oz of gold, with more than half of it in the higher confidence indicated category.

But drilling continues.

There is strong potential to continue growing the resource as mineralisation remains open along strike and both updip and downdip, the company says.

Twenty-two of 42 newly reported holes have now returned strong intercepts, like 15m at 2.90g/t gold from 79m (including 7m at 3.84g/t gold from 87m).

These hits are just beneath the eastern resource pit shell wall, “showing scope for improvement of the model in this area”, Saturn says.

34 of the holes reported intercepts above the average resource grade (0.8g/t) and 39 holes reported intercepts above the Apollo Hill resource cut-off grade.

The higher grade intercepts show the potential to extend and improve on the January 2021 resource estimate of 35.9 million tonnes at 0.8g/t Au for 944,000 oz of gold.

Saturn says the intersections sit in ideal locations “for additional leverage on the resource and subsequent open pit optimisations”.

These are the first round of assays reported after the January 2021 resource upgrade.

Assays are pending for 102 resource drill holes (7,300m) drilled to test several targets across the Apollo Hill resource camp.

Saturn currently has two rigs on site working towards the next resource upgrade planned for later in 2021.

“An increase in the understanding of the geological controls across the deposit after the 2020 drilling program is allowing us to successfully target higher grade mineralisation both within and around the newly expanded resource,” managing director Ian Bamborough says.

“Scope for further improvement exists as we continue to apply the learnings from the December-January resource modelling exercise.

“Drilling since early January has focussed on testing for higher grade opportunities across the deposit as well as on several crucial ‘step-out’ exploration initiatives.

“An aggressive start to the year reflects our continued confidence in the deposit and a great step for our next stage of growth.”

 

 

 

This article was developed in collaboration with Saturn Metals, 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.