Victory Mines has moved to full ownership of its flagship Coogee gold project in WA, with the company issuing of $1 million in shares to the company’s former joint venture partner in the project, mid-tier gold miner Ramelius Resources.
The purchase drastically shortened the company’s original timeline for the acquisition of the project and comes in the wake of a wealth of high-grade intercepts from recent drilling including 10 metres at 12.01 grams per tonne gold, hosting stunning 3m at 35.87 g/t gold from 93m down-hole.
As consideration, the Victory issued Ramelius close to 322 million shares, delivering Ramelius a top 20 shareholding in the company, with the miner sitting on around 6.8 per cent of Victory’s issued capital. The share issue secures Victory 100 per cent of the Coogee tenure whilst providing Ramelius with exposure to the resurgent project as exploration continues to offer up a cavalcade of auriferous drill intercepts.
Victory’s Coogee gold project is situated a mere 55km south-east of the Kalgoorlie gold mining centre in the Eastern Goldfields of Western Australia. The project was originally developed by Ramelius Resources in 2013, with the burgeoning miner excavating a small open pit within the project tenure and extracting 20,400 ounces of high-grade gold.
However, in 2014 with the open pit resources seemingly dwindling and the then gold price looking a little shaky, sliding towards US$1,200 per ounce, Ramelius shuttered the open pit and moved on to greener pastures.
Fast-forward to 2020, Victory leapt onto the scene at Coogee in July, inking a farm-in agreement with Ramelius and quickly earned a 10 per cent holding in the project. The company’s early analysis of the underexplored Coogee ore system revealed that the gold mineralisation was likely to continue both along strike and at depth.
Modelling of the Coogee Shear shows a broad zone of alteration and quartz veining which hosts a wealth of rich intercepts that have yet to be followed up with systematic drilling. The rash of impressive results from outside the immediate mine environs included 6m at 16.80 g/t gold from only 36m downhole, 5m at 11.13 g/t gold from 82m and 3m at 21.03 g/t from 104m, galvanising the company’s exploration program.
With the Coogee pit already hosting a modest resource of 96,000 tonnes at 3.4 g/t gold below the pit floor, Victory had plenty of incentive to kick off exploration. The company launched into a 4,000m campaign of reverse circulation drilling in the fourth quarter of 2020, which was designed to test the depth extensions of the ore system and test various intriguing drill intercepts along strike.
Victory’s aggressive drilling campaign quickly bore fruit with drilling below the open pit and along strike producing a set of broad drill intercepts including 20m at 2.22 g/t gold from 92m, 19m at 1.55 g/t gold from 91m and a high-grade 3m at 7.11 g/t gold from only 42m down-hole. The company’s success prompted it to modify the terms of farm-in agreement with Ramelius, making the miner an offer it didn’t refuse and expediting the purchase of the project.
With the acquisition of the Coogee gold project now completed, well ahead of schedule, Victory is shifting quickly through the gears having already jumped into its next phase of drilling. The company is charging through a 6,000m drilling program designed to follow up of the successes of the previous year and has high expectations for the weeks, months and year ahead.
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