Galena lead project turns gold
Galena Mining’s high class lead silver Abra project in W.A. just turned gold after the company discovered a solid intersection of ore grade gold and copper mineralisation at depth.
A diamond drilling program that was designed to increase the confidence of inferred mineral resources through the “apron zone” of the deposit also returned 15.4 metres grading 25.9% lead and 74 grams per tonne silver from 519.1m down-hole, including an astounding 7.7m @ 41.7% lead and 116g/t silver from 525.7m down-hole.
Buoyed by their success, company geologists pushed this drill hole even deeper and intersected a surprise vector of high grade gold mineralisation laced with pretty good copper grades.
The intercept of 8.0m @ 9.5g/t gold, 1.4% lead, 0.6% copper and 77g/t silver from 706m down-hole starts to outline the Abra system as a true polymetallic ore body, whose secrets are only just starting to unravel.
The deeper section of the hole also intersected another surprise, with a lead-silver rich zone from 692m down-hole, returning assays showing 5.8m @ 9.6% lead and 29g/t silver.
Galena CEO Ed Turner said: “Significant high grade gold intercepted was unexpected and adds support to further investigating an increasingly interesting copper-gold story at depth below the base of the current JORC resource.”
“We look forward to releasing further results from this drilling program in the coming weeks and the results of a PFS, for which we are fully funded. This study will be completed in Q3 2018.”
Another result in the “apron zone” reported from the northern end of the ore system produced an intercept of 4.2m @ 8.1% lead and 14g/t silver from 371.2m down-hole, potentially extending the indicated status of the resource even further.
The infill and extensional resource development drilling program is designed to support the ongoing PFS for the Abra project and is continuing with two rigs on-site. Assays are still pending for a further 6 completed drill holes which will no doubt create some shareholder anticipation.
The company says that further exciting results are anticipated to be announced over coming weeks, with the current drill program not due to wind up until August.
Galena recently announced some outstanding scoping study results for Abra, which confirmed that it is an economically and technically robust project, with potential to become a significant, long-life, high margin W.A. lead-silver producer.
The release this week of significant gold and copper results at depth show that Abra still has legs beyond its significant lead-silver mineralisation.
The company will now fast track the project through to PFS completion in September 2018 and then onto Feasibility in 2019.
The current work is primarily targeting the apron zone of laterally continuous mineralisation at Abra and this will be Galena’s focus for early stage underground development, as highlighted by the recent scoping study.
Nobody knows how large the Abra ore system might actually become, with historical results from the Hyperion prospect, 1.4km away at similar depths showing high-grade results of 6m @ 9.9% lead from 548m down-hole and 2.5m @ 9.2% lead from 572m down-hole.
Sprinkle in some very promising initial lead and copper results from Galena’s Woodlands complex, 50km to the west of Abra and the company appears to sitting on a pretty impressive suite of highly prospective, sediment-hosted, base metal tenements in this under-explored part of W.A.