Kairos Minerals is getting into full swing with the commencement of a drilling blitz across two projects in WA. A 3,000-metre campaign at Roe Hills targeting nickel and gold is due to start early next month, while a 20,000-metre campaign designed to grow existing gold resources at Mt York in the Pilbara is due to start mid-April.
With the end of the wet season in northern Australia, Kairos has hit the ground running and kicked off the company’s 2021 field season.
At Roe Hills, located some 120 kilometres east of Kalgoorlie in the world-famous Goldfields, drilling will target gold and nickel mineralisation across three separate prospects. According to management, Kairos’ 324-square-kilometre tenure in the gold-rich region hosts a 40km strike length of the interpreted southern extensions of the gold bearing Leonora-Laverton greenstone belts.
In the northern part of the tenure at the Black Cat gold prospect, a total of 800 metres of first-pass reconnaissance drilling is planned to test a geochemical anomaly with a strike length of 1,800m.
The prospect lies adjacent to the Keith-Kilkenny Shear zone that hosts several gold deposits including the 579,000-ounce Aldiss project held by ASX-listed Silver Lake Resources. Aldiss includes the Harrys Hill and French Kiss open-cut mines which are located along strike to Black Cat in a southerly direction.
Some 5km from the French Kiss mine at the southern end of the project tenure, Kairos will undertake follow-up drilling at the Caliburn prospect. Previous drilling there hit anomalous gold along three main sections 80m apart, with most holes returning broad mineralised intercepts.
A wide hit of 54m grading 0.74 grams per tonne of gold from just 10m, included a higher grade 16m section going 1.02 g/t gold from 22m and 2m at 6.43 g/t from 54m.
According to management, initial interpretations suggest Caliburn may represent a broad zone of gold mineralisation up to 50m thick, 150m wide and over 160m in length that is open in all directions.
At the Talc Lake prospect, also at the southern edges of the Roe Hills tenure, five holes for 1,000m are set to test the potential of nickel mineralisation by drilling into off-hole conductors and an ultramafic unit defined by Kairos through geophysical surveying.
Meanwhile in the Pilbara, Kairos is getting ready to smash out some metres at Mt York by mid-April. On-ground preparation works are under way and a drilling contractor has been secured for the major 20,000m campaign.
Whilst the Pilbara is best known for its gigantic iron ore reserves, in recent times the region has developed a reputation as an emerging gold hub. The Hemi discovery by ASX-listed De Grey Mining in late 2019 shined a new light on the district for its gold potential.
Since discovery, De Grey’s share price has rocketed from under 5¢ to as high as $1.60 by September last year. The company is aspiring to delineate a five-million-ounce resource at Hemi to add to its existing resources of over two million ounces of gold.
Mt York is no stranger to gold either with over 125,000 ounces of the precious yellow metal poured in the 1990s. Since acquiring the project in 2016, Kairos has defined a resource of 20.93 million tonnes grading 1.3 g/t gold for an impressive 873,000 ounces within its 1,547sqkm tenure.
The upcoming drilling campaign will aim to grow the existing resource base and upgrade the unclassified, inferred and indicated resources into categories of higher confidence. Several exploration holes are also planned to test previously generated targets located outside of the existing resource areas.
Finally, at the Wodgina project some 90km south of Port Hedland, Kairos will undertake a geochemical sampling program targeting lithium mineralisation in areas where pegmatite swarms were previously mapped. The termination of a farm-in-agreement at the project with ASX-listed Altura Mining may be a blessing in disguise with a recent resurgence in sentiment for lithium exploration.
After a busy few months preparing for the 2021 field season, the time has finally come for Kairos Minerals to get the rods spinning again. Two major drilling campaigns in mineral-rich regions of WA bode well for a news-riddled year for the cashed-up Kairos.
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By Matt Birney
