Askari Metals appoints contractor for maiden gold drill program in WA

New ASX listing Askari Metals has secured a drilling contractor to undertake a maiden reverse circulation drilling program at its Burracoppin gold project in Western Australia. Planned drilling is designed to test several high-grade historical results and artisanal workings. The company is cashed up after recently raising close to $6 million as part of its initial public offering.

Askari has locked in Oredrill Australia to begin testing its highly prospective Burracoppin gold prospect, near the town of Merredin east of Perth. The WA wheatbelt region has been in the mineral exploration spotlight in recent months with Latin Resource’s high-profile 123 million tonne Cloud Nine halloysite-kaolinite discovery, which put a rocket under Latin’s share price. 

Askari is scheduled to kick off drilling at Burracoppin by the end of the month after the appointment of Oredrill. The company is planning to follow up on a swag of historical high-grade drill results and test the mineralisation below a line of artisanal gold workings where sampling has returned assays of up to 71.39 grams per tonne gold. The workings appear to have been only partially tested by previous exploration.

Previous exploration over Burracoppin has returned some cracking intercepts in shallow holes, hinting that exploration may have only scratched the surface of a potentially significant gold play. Intervals include 18m at 5.64g/t gold from less than 1m, 14m at a whopping 13.7g/t gold from 32m and 2 at 9.2g/t gold from 18m.

Interestingly, Burracoppin lies just 27km to the south of ASX mid-tier gold miner Ramelius Resources’ Edna May gold mine, which may present a useful production path should the Burracoppin drilling start to build a resource position.

Askari is planning to test strike and depth extensions of gold mineralisation with 2,000m of reverse circulation drilling. The company is planning a number of holes to probe the gold bearing structures at more than 150m below surface.

Askari will additionally soon fire up exploration at the Horry copper project south of Halls Creek in WA’s north.  Horry sits on the eastern margin of WA’s Kimberley region, about 90km to the south-west of Hall Creek. Management says it has received little meaningful exploration despite being on the southern end of the stratigraphy that hosts Cazaly Resources’ Mt Angelo deposit and Anglo Australian Resources’ Koongie Park copper deposit to the north. Previous field work has outlined a 900m-long zone of alteration, with rock chips producing grades up to an impressive 5.5 per cent copper.

Interestingly, prospectors also report unearthing sizeable gold nuggets in the area surrounding Horry, adding to the allure of the prospect. Askari is now planning a field program of mapping and sampling as a prelude to a larger program of geophysical surveying and drilling later in the year.

Vice President of Exploration and Geology Johan Lambrechts said: “This is an important milestone for the company and signifies the commencement of a busy exploration season for Askari. We are very pleased to have been able to secure the drilling services of Oredrill [who] possess the right level of skill and experience and are familiar with the geological terraces that host our Burracoppin gold prospect.”

Askari also has the Callawa project in WA’s Pilbara region, east of Rio Tinto’s famed Winu discovery, and the Springdale project that sits within the Lachlan Fold Belt of New South Wales, south-east of Newcrest Mining’s colossal Cadia-Ridgeway gold and copper mining complex.

Askari is set to take advantage of the current strength in copper and gold markets, with both metals trading near 10-year highs. As gold drilling kicks off at Burracoppin and first-pass sampling commences over the high-grade Horry copper project it should not be long before this newly minted explorer begins to earn its stripes in some of the world’s most fertile copper and gold terranes.

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