Sure, the US desert region is spectacular, but it’s also brutal. You need a good reason if you plan on going there for the long haul. As it happens, there’s one great reason – gold.
And that’s exactly why Riedel Resources (ASX:RIE) has planted its flag in Arizona, near the border of Nevada.
Arizona has long been a centre for copper and gold mining, and still currently accounts for a whopping 66% of US copper production.
If it were a country, it would be the seventh largest copper producer in the world; with Chile, China and Peru holding the top three positions.
Searching for gold at Kingman
However, it’s the famous Tier 1 gold jurisdiction in the northwest of Arizona in the Mohave County that has RIE focused on its flagship Kingman gold-silver project.
Kingman is surrounded by historical and active gold deposits – such as Elevation Mining’s active Moss gold mine, which recently proved up a resource containing 185,500oz of gold.
The project area was mined predominantly for high-grade gold and silver from the 1880s until the early 1940s – which coincided with the outbreak of WWII.
The team at Riedel reckon they’re sitting on a vastly underexplored set of tenements, with several exciting targets to test in an extensive 7,000m RC drill program currently underway.
So far, over 600m of strike has been defined at the Tintic prospect with ground magnetics suggesting this may extend for around 2km and previous results returning near surface intersections including 3.8m at 98.9 grams per tonne (g/t) gold and 151g/t silver from 20.6m, as well as 1.5m at 39.3g/t gold and 323g/t silver from 37.3m.
That’s chunky.
Riedel’s plan and strategy
The explorer is looking for near-term project cashflow, so it’s concentrating on proving up the low capex shallow resources before it moves onto what it senses is a much larger endowment of gold and silver ore.
RIE CEO David Groombridge said his team’s immediate objective is to define a mineral resource estimate at Tintic by the end of the year, while regional drilling is planned to test extensions to the north and south of Tintic.
Fully funded following a recent $2.5 million share placement, the company’s drilling programme is set for completion by September – will effectively provide sufficient data for the MRE on the back of the previous results.
To date, a total of 26 RC drill holes for ~1900m have been completed, with the first batch of drill samples currently at the laboratory under analysis, and assay results earmarked for early August.
“The resource drill out at Tintic has made a strong start and is progressing efficiently and on schedule with around half of the Priority 1 holes completed,” he said.
“In July, drilling will advance to the south of Tintic to complete the remaining Priority 1 holes before the exploration team shifts its focus to some exciting early-stage prospects across the project.”
Looking ahead
Riedel expects first assay results from the program in August with news flow from the 7,000m drill program to continue thereafter as it progresses toward a maiden MRE.
This article was developed in collaboration with Riedel 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.