TSX-listed Novo Resources could soon be dreaming of its own Hemi heaven as it continues its committed gold chase at the company’s cornerstone Becher project in Western Australia’s Pilbara region.
The company says its latest AC drilling results show a promising likeness to early work reported at De Grey Mining’s lucrative Hemi gold discovery, which has fuelled a modern-day gold rush with the likes of Greatland Gold, Kalamazoo Resources and Golden State Mining swooping in to peg their own pieces of the prospective Mallina Basin.
A recently-completed scoping study suggests Hemi could churn out an average gold production figure of about 427,000 ounces per annum in a 10-year period.
Novo’s latest drill highlights show a 3m hit at 5.23 grams per tonne gold from just 9m. It recently completed 423 holes across 10,080m, with results received from 349 holes under shallow cover including a separate 3m intercept going 2.93g/t gold, also from 9m.
The ongoing 20,000m air-core (AC) campaign is testing multiple, high-priority structural and intrusion-hosted gold targets generated from the company’s 2022 programs.
Additional assay highlights include another 3m intercept grading 2.08g/t gold from 12m and 3m going 1.04g/t gold from 18m. Results from the current AC program are located on 320m lines across the company’s Heckmair prospect and infill its previous 640m of drilling completed last year.
More than 32,000m of drilling was conducted by Novo last year on broad regional lines focused on east/north-east trending gold-fertile, structurally complex corridors at Becher and highlighted three standout gold and associated pathfinder element targets at the Irvine, Heckmair and Whillans prospects.
Novo Resources acting chief executive officer and co-chairman Mike Spreadborough said: “We are very excited by further standout assay results from our Becher Project … our ongoing AC program has highlighted the potential for significant mineralisation throughout the area. Novo has discovered a large broad area of gold anomalism with recent drilling now confirming gold mineralisation extending into the underlying intrusions and sandstone rock units adjacent to De Grey’s Mallina Gold Project.”
Becher forms part of Novo’s 10,500-square-kilometre Pilbara tenement package and sits within its greater Egina gold camp and between De Grey’s Mallina and Hemi gold projects. The company says the greater Egina gold camp includes an 80km strike trend along a known gold-fertile corridor between Becher and Nunyerry North.
Novo says its latest results highlight the need to continue prioritising the Irvine, Heckmair and Whillans targets, including both structurally-controlled and intrusion-related gold, which appear similar to mineralisation at De Greys’ Mallina gold project.
Drilling of the remaining 10,000m AC drilling continues at Heckmair and Whillans. Targets at Heckmair and Irvine will be considered for follow-up deeper RC drilling next quarter.
The company says that considering ongoing gold and multi-element results, AC drilling will continue past the 20,000m planned for this quarter, completing the regional reconnaissance at Bonatti and following up any new targets at closer spacing.
The market is watching to see if Nova can turn its optimism into a genuine corner-turning moment.
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By Michael Philipps
