Neometals Ltd has continued to rack up high-grade hits at its Barrambie gold project in Western Australia’s Mid-West region, delivering a bonanza 1m at 38.4 grams per tonne (g/t) from first pass drilling along strike from the company’s historic Golden Treasure mine.
Other notable results included 5m running at 5.65g/t from 84m, with a high-grade 2m core tipping in 13.27g/t and another hole, which pulled up 2m averaging 11.75g/t from 137m downhole.
The latest results have capped off last year’s drilling program, where 26 reverse circulation holes for more than 3250 metres peppered the intriguing trend designed to test extensions of the Golden Treasure mine.
Management says the results will help guide follow-up exploration drilling at the historic mine and along strike at the Barrambie Ranges trend. The new program will form part of broader plans to progress the company’s nearby historic Mystery mine and test its Sugarstone area.
Neometals Limited managing director Chris Reed said: “The first-pass program has delivered more than just high-grade intercepts – it’s confirmed the presence of multiple mineralised structures along the Barrambie Ranges gold trend, and a clear path to follow up drilling.”
The Golden Treasure program was part of a much larger 82-hole, 8457-metre drilling blitz, testing three targets across Neometals’ Barrambie tenure, which stretches along 40 kilometres of gold-prospective greenstones that have historically produced at a head-turning 24.8g/t.
Of that total, 42 holes for 3547m were plunged into the company’s advanced Ironclad deposits, home to a maiden 13,000 ounce inferred gold resource, while a further 14 holes for 1652m peppered the Mystery deposit.
Market meerkats likely looked on with interest earlier this month as a suite of thick high-grade results rolled in from Ironclad, including a 9-metre intercept going at 7.19g/t gold as part of a broader 19-metre hit grading 4.16g/t gold from 106m.
A second hole returned 26m grading 2.50g/t gold from 69m, which included a 5m slice of 5.84g/t gold and another 6m section running at 4.36 g/t gold.
Other hits shone with 26m at 4.04g/t gold from surface, including 15m at 6.58g/t gold, alongside a shallower hit of 10m at 3.29g/t gold from 11m, which included a 4-metre chunk grading 5.09g/t gold.
At nearby Mystery, previously reported results delivered a cracker of an intercept in one hole, pulling in 14m at 11.74g/t gold from 82m, including 6 metres grading a whopping 26.56g/t gold.
The market responded positively at the time, with Neometals’ share price jumping nearly 20 per cent to a high of 7.5 cents. The latest results seem to have kept the wind firmly in the sails at that price point.
Although Barrambie is best known for its world-class titanium riches, it is fast emerging as a promising new gold district. The company’s 505 square kilometre patch, nestled between Sandstone and Meekatharra, hasn’t seen any serious gold exploration since the 1990s.
Neometals has set its sights high, recently outlining an exploration target across the 40-kilometre strike of the Barrambie greenstone belt of between 8 and10.5 million tonnes grading from 1.3g/t to 2.3g/t gold, equating to a potential 335,000 to 775,000 ounces of gold.
The company is putting the finishing touches to a mineral resource update for the Ironclad deposit, slated for release this quarter, while running geotechnical, metallurgical, hydrological and environmental studies in parallel as it gears up for lodgement of the mining approval.
With bonanza gold lighting up Barrambie, a resource upgrade looming at Ironclad and 40 kilometres of gold-charged greenstones still largely untouched, Neometals isn’t just exploring anymore – it appears to be circling something much bigger. The only real question now is how many gold ounces are hiding in plain sight.
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By Helen Barling
