Bulls N’ Bears Big Hits examines some notable drill intercepts revealed on the ASX this week, including Sunshine Metals’ one-ounce-per-tonne gold hit from 41 metres, which included 2m at 3.9 ounces per tonne gold.
Other interesting drill hits from last week were reported from Variscan Mines’ Udias lead-zinc mine in northern Spain and PVW Resources’ Capao Bonito rare earths project in Brazil.
Let’s dive in.
Sunshine Metals (ASX: SHN)
Project: Liontown prospect, Ravenswood project, North Queensland.
Hit: 10m at 31.91g/t gold from 41m. including 2m at 121.5g/t gold from 46m.
Shallow drilling at Sunshine Metals’ Liontown prospect, part of its Ravenswood Consolidated project in North Queensland, has delivered a best intercept of 10m at an average gold grade of just over the magic one ounce per tonne.
While that primary intercept is impressive enough, the icing on the cake came with an included 2m hit at a heart-warming 121.5 grams per tonne (g/t) gold - or 3.9 ounces per tonne - from 46m.
The second-best hole gave up 9m assaying 6.31g/t gold from surface, while the third-best hole delivered 3m running 6.35g/t gold from 79m.
The results relate to 16 reverse circulation infill drill holes put into the project out of 29 holes for 1834m, which have just been completed at the Liontown prospect.
The company intends that the drilling program will help consolidate its metallurgical testwork before it upgrades the current shallow 21,000-ounce inferred gold resource to an indicated resource. The resource also contains 307,000 ounces of silver.
Additional metallurgical samples required for the resource category upgrade will be sent for metallurgical testwork when all assay results are assessed.
The company says it has intersected historical mining voids from 1m to 2m-wide true thickness in predicted locations.
The company plans to have its Liontown drilling results in hand by the end of June, while its metallurgical results and resource upgrade mining study will kick off in July.
It also plans to construct a refined void model to take account of removed tonnes and grades as part of the resource refinement and upgrade.
Sunshine’s strategy is to identify shallow oxide-hosted gold resources to depths of about 50m and rapidly evaluate their commercial potential while gold prices are still high. It has toll treatment in mind through one of the nearby processing mills.
The recent reverse circulation drilling program has closed up the spacing across the oxide and transitional resource to a 25-square-metre grid.
Sunshine’s managing director Dr Damien Keys said the company’s stunning gold intercept in the shallows of the Liontown resource is a “Back to the Future” moment, given the operation began as a gold mine in 1905 with an estimated 28,000 ounces of gold mined at a 22g/t grade.
The company’s latest drilling program reinforces the significance of pursuing a shallow oxide gold production strategy, Keys said.
Sunshine announced this week it had received the latest and final 13 holes from its 29-hole drilling program.
A best intercept from the final 13 holes is 3m assaying 3.05g/t gold from surface, 5m going 4.67g/t gold and 481g/t silver from 6m, 3m at 22.82g/t gold and 351g/t silver from 13m and a further 3m running 10.51g/t gold and 442g/t silver from 38m.
Variscan Mines’ is landing big zinc hits at its Udias zinc Mine in Spain. The company aims to extend along current workings to link up with existing resources and beyond to its formerly producing underground San Jose mine (pictured). Credit: File.
Variscan Mines (ASX: VAR)
Project: Udias lead-zinc mine, the Novales-Udias project, northern Spain.
Hit: 8m at 9.6 per cent zinc and 0.02 per cent lead and 10m at 5.58 per cent zinc and 0.52 per cent lead.
Variscan has nailed further encouraging base metal intercepts at its Udias mine in northern Spain, with assays from its underground diamond drilling program confirming significant base metal mineralisation.
The headline hit recorded 8m at 9.6 per cent zinc and 0.02 per cent lead, and 10m at 5.58 per cent zinc and 0.52 per cent lead.
It was supported by a second-best intercept of 7.1m assaying 3.85 per cent zinc and 0.47 per cent lead and 5m going 5.32 per cent zinc and 0.59 per cent lead.
Two other top intercepts gave up 5.4m at 5.06 per cent zinc and 0.2 per cent lead and 4m assaying 4.93 per cent zinc and 0.04 per cent lead.
Variscan’s inaugural underground drilling program at Udias was designed to test priority targets in previously undrilled areas. It also discovered new mineralised zones outside the company’s current mineral resource estimate.
Importantly, the drilling results correlate well with historical underground face sampling results and confirm past mining for zinc exploited zinc oxide and did not completely mine out higher-grade, primary zinc sulphide mineralisation.
The Udias–San Jose trend extends for about 4.5 kilometres from Udias in the southwest of the trend, along an arcuate northeasterly mineralised strike towards the San Jose/Novales mine area.
The complex features an extensive footprint of underexplored workings lying along strike from and mostly outside the company’s current mineral resource estimate. Variscan plans to deliver a resource update later in 2025.
Assays from the latest round of diamond drilling show mineralised zones extend well beyond the current geological and mineral resource models and remain open along strike and to greater depths.
So far, the Udias drilling has shown strong geological similarities with mineralisation encountered in the San Jose mine, confirming they are part of the same mineral system and Variscan is continuing the program to confirm the upside of the largely underexplored but highly mineralised locality.
It plans to progressively move its drilling focus into new target zones along the existing line of mine development to eventually link up existing resources with its estimated resource at the San Jose/Novales mine area further northeast.
The Udias mine complex links directly via underground mine workings to the San Jose mine near Novales, with both mines sitting on the greater 12km-long Udias-San Jose-Novales trend.
Ready access to the underground mine has permitted mapping, sampling and drilling of short, cost-effective holes to a maximum depth of about 30m.
An updated JORC compliant mineral resource estimate for multiple individual mineralised zones along about 4500km of strike - including Udias, the Central San Jose zone and northeast San Jose zone, was released in December 2024 and comprises 3.4 million tonnes at 7.6 per cent zinc and 0.9 per cent lead.
The Udias mine complex is several times bigger than the San Jose mine. Variscan has only recently started drilling the complex, while the southern part of the Udias mine, which is more than 1.4km long, has never been drilled.
Future work aims to progress the San Jose/Novales-Udias drilling campaign and advance the metallurgical and geotechnical testwork. All these results will then be included in a mine re-start scoping study.
The Novales-Udias project is in the Basque-Cantabrian Basin, 30km southwest of the regional capital, Santander.
It is centred on the former producing San Jose underground mine, which has extensive surrounding exploration opportunities, including satellite underground and surface workings and zinc anomalies identified by recent and historic geochemical surveys.
PVW Resources (ASX: PVW)
Project: Capao Bonito rare earths project, Brazil
Hit: 14m at 2440ppm TREO from surface, ending with 1m at 1942ppm
Assay results from PVW Resources’ final 13 drill holes confirm widespread near-surface rare earth element mineralisation, with a peak value of 5662 parts per million (ppm) total rare earths oxides (TREO).
The best intercept in the campaign’s last stage was 14m at 2440ppm TREO from surface, ending in mineralisation with 1m going 1942ppm TREO.
The company’s phase one drilling program at its Capao Bonito East Block is now complete. Of 56 holes assayed to date, 89 per cent have intercepted TREO values exceeding 500ppm.
The mineralisation ranges in thickness up to about 14m from a minimum 4m depth below surface. Many of the holes terminate in strong grades.
The top five intercepts all end in TREO grades ranging from 1022ppm to 1942ppm TREO, which average 1413ppm TREO.
The encouraging results lift Capao Bonito’s status as a cornerstone asset in PVW’s Brazilian rare earths portfolio. The consistently high TREO concentrations and broad mineralised zones support the company’s confidence in the project’s scale and development potential.
With phase one drilling completed at Capao Bonito, the next step is to confirm the mineralisation’s ionic adsorption clay (IAC) characteristics.
Accordingly, 450 samples have been submitted to SGS Geosol for ammonium sulphate leach testing to verify the IAC rare earths style and assess its recovery potential. This is a critical diagnostic method for confirming IAC rare earth systems.
The company is now directing its attention to the nearby Sguario project, about 20km southwest of Capao Bonito, where preliminary work also yielded highly encouraging results.
These include early assays pointing to near-surface mineralisation and favourable metallurgical characteristics similar to those at Capao Bonito.
Initial intercepts at Sguario from late last year include 6.5m at 1515 ppm TREO, including 464ppm neodymium+praseodymium (NdPr) oxides from surface, and 1.5m at 2796 ppm TREO, including 902ppm NdPr oxides within a broader 5m mineralised interval.
Sguario rare earths mineralisation remains open at depth. The company is planning follow-up exploration to define the scale and continuity of the rare earth-enriched zones.
PVW Resources is an emerging exploration company focussed on Brazilian rare earth elements and gold in a country with favourable geology, excellent infrastructure and reliable state regulations.
The company is developing high-potential projects for IAC rare earths, which are essential, valuable and critical elements required for the global clean energy transition.
PVW’s latest drilling program confirms extensive near-surface mineralisation up to 17m deep, with more than 70 per cent of the intercepts kicking off from shallow depths of 5m or less, including the final headline hole.
The dominant shallow, high-grade mineralisation enhances the project’s economic potential and supports the possibility of a project featuring low-cost, low-risk extraction.
Is your ASX-listed company doing something interesting? Contact: matt.birney@businessnews.com.au
By Doug Bright
