Special Report: Torian climbed nearly 18 per cent on Wednesday after its JV partner hit more high-grade gold at the Paradigm East prospect, proving they have a much bigger system than initially thought.
Torian Resources’ (ASX:TNR) partner in the Zuleika Gold JV, Dampier Resources (ASX:DAU), reported a top high-grade hit of 24m at 6.39 grams per tonne (g/t) from 28m, including 4m at 34.74g/t gold from 32m, from the Paradigm East prospect.
Paradigm East, Browns Dam and Castle Hill East form part of Dampier’s flagship Zuleika project, which covers 223sqkm of prospective gold terrain along the Zuleika Shear 40km northwest of Kalgoorlie Western Australia.
The 223sqkm project hosts regional structures that have produced more than 20 million oz of gold over the last 30 years, and are still producing, with scope for more discoveries.
The news sent Torian shares up 17.6 per cent to an intra-day peak of 4c.
Torian Resources (ASX:TNR) share price chart:
“Our strategy all along has been to unlock the value inherent in our other projects whilst maintaining our focus on the Mt Stirling project, and these results from Dampier vindicate that strategy,” Torian executive director Peretz Schapiro said.
“It’s not our primary focus but it’s a significant bonus for our shareholders. By investing in Torian they gain exposure to a wonderful project in addition to our primary focus at Leonora in our Mt Stirling gold project.
“We are very much looking forward to Dampier continuing to prove up potentially a gold resource out there at Zuleika.”
The 21-hole, 1055m phase two drilling program was designed to test to the base of oxidation, an additional over 400m of strike extension to mineralisation identified in phase one.
This drilling also delivered another notable gold intercept of 8m at 2.2g/t, including 4m at 3.3 g/t from 48m.
To put this in context, anything over about 5g/t gold is considered high grade, but at the current consistently high gold price grades of as low as 1-2g/t can be economic, especially when they’re not far from surface like these latest results.
Dampier says these new high-grade hits confirm and extend the historical high-grade zone intersected in a previous hole that delivered 7m at 9.8g/t including 2m at 30.9g/t gold from 42m.
Drilling to the east of previous drilling extended the mineralised footprint a further 400m along strike, with the zone still ‘open’ to the east and a further 2km still to be tested.
Open just means Torian and Dampier haven’t found the edges of this large system yet.
“We have hit more high-grade mineralisation in previously untested areas,” Dampier managing director Annie Guo said.
“These results extend the known limits of mineralisation. This points to a larger mineralised envelope which in turn will give greater scale to the project.
“With more than 40 targets including drill ready prioritised targets such as Paradigm East, Browns Dam and Castle Hill East, we are exploring in one of the richest gold regions in the world, demonstrated by multiple mines along the Zuleika Shear and on parallel and cross cutting structures.”
Other intercepts grading at over 100 parts per billion gold were also returned from two of the holes, which confirm anomalous gold and suggest the presence of further mineralisation yet to be discovered.
Guo says Paradigm East now has a significant long footprint of over 700m.
The JV partners are undertaking an aggressive exploration program to rapidly define JORC-compliant resources at the Zuleika project.
This article was developed in collaboration with Torian 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.