Gold explorer Alto Metals (ASX:AME) has secured a new mining lease over the Lords Corridor’ area from the Department of Mines, Industry Regulation and Safety (DMIRS).
The company says this new lease (M57/658) consolidates the Lords Camp area within its wholly owned Sandstone Gold Project in Western Australia.
Lords Camp currently holds a ‘shallow’ gold mineral resource estimate (MRE) of 0.4 million ounces (Moz) at 1.6 grams per tonne (g/t) gold under granted mining lease, according to the $33.56 million market capitalisation company.
The new lease was submitted based on a mineralisation report and supporting document statement prepared by Alto’s in-house technical team, which highlighted gold mineralisation south of the June lode and elsewhere within the 3km long granodiorite.
Alto reports this new lease further de-risks the Sandstone project and provides optionality for future mining scenarios.
The new mining lease covers the mineralised corridor between existing mining leases ML57/652 and ML57/651, which cover the Lord Nelson and Lord Henry deposits, respectively, and is also contiguous with ML57/650 to the west.
Low-cost lithium exploration is continuing at Sandstone, where a number of prospective targets have already been identified.
Additional exploration planned for the remainder of 2023 includes a phased 5,000-10,000m of extensional and resource reverse circulation (RC) drilling contemplated for the Bull Oak, Indomitable, and Vanguard areas. This drilling is planned to begin in the coming weeks.
Speaking on the new mining lease, Alto Metals Managing Director Matthew Bowles says: “We are pleased to announce that our application for a new mining lease over the Lords Corridor has been granted.
“this further de-risks the Sandstone Gold Project and complements our strategy to maintain optionality for future development scenarios“
Importantly, this further de-risks the Sandstone Gold Project and complements our strategy to maintain optionality for future development scenarios. I would like to thank our in-house team on their work to successfully secure this new mining lease and DMIRS for the support of the Sandstone Gold Project in granting the new lease.”
Alto Metals is a Western Australian gold explorer that owns the Sandstone project in the east Murchison region.
The project currently holds a total independent MRE of 17.6 million tonnes (Mt) @ 1.5g/t gold for 832,000oz, optimised and pit-constrained within a $2,500/oz pit-shells, capturing over 80% of the total unconstrained MRE of 23.5Mt at 1.4g/t gold for 1.05Moz.
Alto Metals had $1.1 million cash at hand as of 30 June 2023 prior to a $5 million placement and an additional $420,000 drill-for-equity arrangement launched in July.
Write to Adam Drought at Mining.com.au
Images: Alto Metals
