As its drill rigs continue to spin in New South Wales, gold explorer and producer Alkane Resources (ASX:ALK) has posted fresh ‘high-grade’ assay results from its Kaiser deposit.
The results come from a recent 12,000m bout of infill reverse circulation (RC) and diamond drilling in the Kaiser inferred Mineral Resource Estimate (MRE) area within Alkane’s Northern Molong Porphyry Project.
Alkane says its drilling program extends for more than 3km from the Kaiser to the Boda deposit and then down to Boda 2-3 — a system that the company believes has the potential to be a ‘large’ and ‘tier-one’ gold-copper project.
With drilling on the Kaiser inferred resource now complete and a final batch of assays expected before the end of March, Alkane says it plans to update the Kaiser MRE to include an indicated category in March or April of 2024.
Meanwhile, the company has one RC rig testing regional targets in the Northern Molong area and one diamond core rig set to start up towards the end of February to target deep mineralisation at Boda 2-3.
Alkane Managing Director Nic Earner says the shallow infill drilling at Kaiser showed high grades from surface as well as a ‘strong continuity of mineralisation’ at depth.
“Both the near surface grades and continuity at depth are encouraging as we look to update the Kaiser mineral resource estimate.
We expect to have the final results available to announce in March and the updated resource completed in March/April. The updated Kaiser resource estimate and the recently released Boda resource update will then be combined in a scoping study to demonstrate the size and scale of these deposits as well as their potential economic value.”
Earner adds that with the ‘intensive’ exploration programs at Boda and Kaiser completed over the last 2 years now coming to an end, the company expects to ‘significantly’ reduce its exploration spend.
Nevertheless, the company’s Northern Molong regional exploration work continues, with assays from the Konigin induced polarisation (IP) anomaly in the area expected in April.
At the Driell Creek Intrusive Complex, an RC rig is currently completing a 2,000m program, and around 500m of diamond drilling is planned for late February in the area.
At the Murga target, a 1,200m RC program is underway, and at Boda 2-3, Alkane is planning roughly 2,500m of diamond core drilling to begin in March.
Alkane Resources had around $73.4 million in cash, bullion, and listed investments at hand at the end of December 2023, according to its latest quarterly report.
Write to Joshua Smith at Mining.com.au
Images: Alkane Resources
