South Perth-based gold explorer Mutiny Gold Ltd will earn a 70 per cent stake in the Secret Creek copper-gold project in the Ashburton region by spending $1.5 million on exploration and completion of a bankable feasibility study, the company has announced
South Perth-based gold explorer Mutiny Gold Ltd will earn a 70 per cent stake in the Secret Creek copper-gold project in the Ashburton region by spending $1.5 million on exploration and completion of a bankable feasibility study, the company has announced.
The full text of a company announcement is pasted below
Australian diversified resources and exploration company Mutiny Gold Ltd ("Mutiny" or "the company") (ASX:MYG) has enhanced its exposure to highly prospective historical Australia resources projects through an agreement to Farm-In to the Secret Creek Project, located in the Ashburton region of Western Australia.
Under the terms of the agreement, Mutiny will earn a 70 per cent interest in the project by funding all necessary expenditure required to delineate a JORC compliant resource and complete a Bankable Feasibility Study (BFS) of the project. The company has made an initial payment of AUD$175,000 and expects to spend a further AUD$1.5M over the next two to three years (approx AUD$500,000 per year) so as to meet its commitments.
Secret Creek is an area marked by numerous prominent quartz ridges, with individual veins extending for several kilometres along strike (ESE direction). Most historical production within the Ashburton area was from alluvial workings in the Soldier Secret and Top Camp areas within Secret Creek Project.
Mutiny Gold Managing Director John Greeve believes this low-cost entry into this project represents a unique opportunity for the company to gain access to a suite of tenements within the Ashburton province, a province that is an emerging significant copper/gold province with similarities to the Carlin and Getchell trend deposits in the USA.
"This province has had a long history of gold production from the Secret Soldier and Top Camp projects but has little history of systemic modern exploration within the past thirty years," Mr Greeve said.
"Our own desktop review of all historical data, together with the results from a site visit by our technical team, confirmed that in addition to the alluvial and bedrock gold this project is highly prospective for high grade copper and other base metals."
As a result of this evaluation the company believes that while the gold potential of the project remains of interest, the project is even more highly prospective for copper and has the potential to contain a significant high-grade copper deposit.
Historical data confirms the presence of high grade copper throughout the project, however as the previous owners showed interest only in the alluvial gold potential it was never explored for other minerals in any meaningful way.
The company is also encouraged by previous exploration, which returned the following results:
- Hard rock gold in limited surface sampling (44 g/t quartz, 29 g/t in gossan)
- Best drill intercept of 2m @9.4 g/t (from limited drilling)
The report from the technical team showed the presence of gossans containing significant amounts of Malachite (a basic copper carbonate). There was also evidence of secondary enriched copper minerals being present.
Mutiny plans to commence an exploration in the near future that will consist of:
- a drainage geochemical program using BLEG and multi-element techniques
- follow-up soil sampling
- high resolution aeromagnetics
- geological mapping
- drilling
The company believes that Secret Creek project is complementary to its Cassilis Gold project in Victoria, a project that is also benefiting from the use of new technologies on a project that has had significant historical workings.
