ASX-listed Aruma Resources has agreed to sell its Slate Dam gold project in WA’s Eastern Goldfields to its neighbour and ASX-listed gold hopeful, Black Cat Syndicate, for $500,000 cash, with the deposit of $50,000 already paid and the balance due on settlement. Also included in the transaction are the Trojan gold resource and Clinker Hill projects.
Aruma said the sale and purchase agreement executed between its own subsidiary, Aruma Exploration Pty Ltd, and Black Cat subsidiary, Black Cat Bulong Pty Ltd, covers a parcel of 10 tenements located approximately 50km due east of Kalgoorlie and adjacent to Black Cat’s existing gold properties.
Whilst Aruma may have given up what the Black Cat Syndicate claims is a gold resource of around 115,000 ounces at Trojan, the company has retained its South Scotia gold project, with an inferred and indicated resource of 2.4MT at 5.3 g/t for 413k ounces of contained gold.
Having cleared the decks, the Paul Schwann-led Aruma can now look to focus on its three core gold exploration projects across WA, including South Scotia, Melrose, and Saltwater.
The company’s portfolio also includes the Capital gold project located near the historical Bywong gold area in the sought-after and mineral-rich Lachlan Fold Belt region of NSW,
Aruma is clearly cherry-picking its priorities with the Melrose and Saltwater projects sitting squarely within Australia’s other contemporary gold mining hotspot, WA’s burgeoning Pilbara region.
The company’s Melrose project leases are clustered around Northern Star’s revered Paulsen’s gold mine and Aruma will no doubt be hoping to unearth a similar company-making deposit, now that it has some fresh cash to splash around.
The Melrose and Saltwater ground have been pegged along the auriferous Nanjilgardy Fault Zone, on the southern margin of the Pilbara, with Melrose around 180km west of the iron ore town of Paraburdoo in Western Australia and Saltwater some 100km east of the town.
A total of around 950 square kilometres of fresh ground has been mopped up by Aruma along a remarkable 85km of the Nanjilgardy Fault’s strike length. Importantly, some of the ground surrounds the million-ounce Paulsen’s gold mine.
The high-grade Paulsen’s gold mine was originally mined in the 1930s with small tonnages of free-milling ore being extracted at an impressive average grade of 12 g/t gold. The mine had its second genesis in 2005 with the operation producing around 75,000 ounces of gold a year prior to the fledgling Northern Star purchasing the mine in 2010.
With Northern Star now jostling for the title of Australia’s largest gold producer, and with a market cap over $10 billion and annual gold production approaching 1 million ounces per annum, Aruma will no doubt be inspired by the Paulsen’s model.
The company is rolling out an array of innovative geophysical tools to track down its Paulsen’s-like gold targets, blending thermal mapping with radar conductivity to locate potential hotspots.
Aruma said it already has six priority targets in its bank, including the Paulsen’s North, Gossan Hill and Belvedere prospects. Its trail-blazing approach to exploration along the Pilbara’s gold-rich southern margin, mixed with a sprinkling of luck from the rotary diviner could see Aruma on track to deliver another Pilbara discovery.
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