Kuniko chases bonanza silver repeats in NSW with new drilling

Kuniko has fired up the drill rig for a second drilling tilt at its Commonwealth gold-silver project in NSW’s tier-one Lachlan Fold Belt. The program will chase extensions to a stunning bonanza-grade discovery from its recently completed and highly successful maiden campaign.

The company says the rig is now on site and set to kick off an initial six-hole 1350-metre diamond drill program. The campaign is designed to follow up on a string of high-grade hits from its first-phase program earlier this year, which boasted a remarkable 100 per cent hit rate from its promising high-grade project.

The headline act from that initial foray was a new discovery at its Silica Hill prospect, where a drill bit tagged a spectacular 0.5-metre interval grading an eye-watering 347 grams per tonne (g/t) gold equivalent. That intercept was made up of a hefty 27g/t gold and a massive 20,603g/t silver, sitting 100m outside the project’s existing resource envelope.

The phase two program will now zero in on that discovery, in addition to testing for extensions to other significant intercepts at the Commonwealth main shaft and Commonwealth South prospects. 

Other top-shelf results from the maiden program included a 7.1-metre hit running a handy 9.7g/t gold equivalent from Commonwealth South and 8m grading 8.6g/t gold equivalent from the main shaft.

With the latest discovery remaining open in all directions, Kuniko has planned the new drilling blitz to be scalable, with the potential to expand to 14 holes for about 3340m, providing flexibility to chase mineralisation as new geological information comes to light.

The results will feed into an updated mineral resource estimate for the Commonwealth-Silica Hill project, which the company expects to deliver in the second half of this year.

Kuniko Limited managing director Maja McGuire said: "We see significant potential for this phase two drilling at the Commonwealth Gold-Silver Project, to delineate a high-value shallow, high-grade gold-silver system with a clear pathway for growth. Phase one drilling has confirmed the fertility of the system, delivering multiple high-grade intercepts across Commonwealth Main Shaft and Commonwealth South, and new bonanza intercepts at Silica Hill, ~100m outside of the existing resource envelope. These results point to a large, fertile and vertically extensive hydrothermal system with significant scale potential.”

Kuniko is busy earning into the project from ASX-listed Impact Minerals, which previously outlined a historical estimate of 88,800 ounces of gold and 3.3 million ounces of silver, plus considerable base metals credits. Judging by the stunning drill hits from phase one, management appears convinced that figure is merely the starting point.

Intriguingly, management also notes that Commonwealth may represent Australia's only known precious-metals-rich volcanogenic massive sulphide (VMS) system, displaying many similarities to Canada's world-renowned Eskay Creek deposit – one of the richest precious metal mines ever discovered.

The blue-sky potential across Kuniko’s 575-square-kilometre tenement package appears significant following a recently completed a MobileMT airborne geophysical survey. That investigation revealed a 4km-long prospective corridor, showing geophysical responses in places that are remarkably similar to those of the known deposits.

With the drill bit now turning to test if the phase one bonanza grades have legs, all eyes will be on the assay results from this second campaign. 

Success here could go a long way to proving up a significant high-grade resource in one of Australia’s most sought-after mineral provinces.

Is your ASX-listed company doing something interesting? Contact: matt.birney@businessnews.com.au