Aureka (ASX:AKA) continues to drill across its Victorian gold portfolio with two rigs turning at present at its Irvine and St Arnaud projects as the company eyes longer term growth opportunities.
Speaking to Mining.com.au in a wide-ranging interview, Managing Director James Gurry says the company will be swinging between projects in a bid to expedite the pathway towards development.
“We’re not going to wait for these results to speak to us, and the market to speak to us to say, ‘All right, yeah, you should get back in and continue the drill that project’, because we’re determined to keep drilling,” Gurry says.
“Because our goals this year is to drill those metres, to deliver the results, and to incorporate those results into a larger gold inventory. I can tell you that we’re already well on the way to increasing the size of our inventory, our gold inventory, which is great.”
Gurry also anticipates that within the next year Aureka could undertake a corporate transaction in terms of a non-core divestiture to possibly simplify the portfolio.
Aureka believes it has an abundance of not only gold but a number of projects within its portfolio that would be attractive to suitors in the current high gold price environment.
“Hopefully by then, we would have demonstrated that we’ve added a lot of value for people from the share class in the market top point of view, because we started the year with a new brand and building again on our old project. And we would have proven to people that we’re a serious business and we’re not a lifestyle company,” Gurry tells this news service.
“Our portfolio is deep with projects. We’ve got to focus on the most valuable ones. We’ve got the opportunity potentially to hide off other projects and realise value for our shareholders that way.
“But what makes us different is that we’re getting up and going again. We haven’t got the wide market recognition yet, but we’re an advanced stage explorer, and I think that’s what really sets us apart.”
In late May, Aureka increased its total JORC-compliant resources by 19% to 360,800 ounces, after defining a maiden inferred resource for the Comstock prospect, part of the St Arnaud Project in Western Victoria, as reported by Mining.com.au.
The mineral resource estimate returned 1.45 million tonnes at 1.2 grams per tonne for 56,500 ounces gold.
Additionally, Aureka estimates an exploration target around the inferred resource of 112,000 ounces to 116,000 ounces of gold. This forms part of a larger exploration target of 392,000 to 536,000 ounces across its entire project portfolio.
Previous drilling was conducted in January 2022 on the Nelson Line at St Arnaud which delivered results including 1m @ 13.9g/t gold from within a zone of 25.3m at 1.7g/t, as well as 4.6m at 3.2g/t gold and 26.9g/t silver from 194m.
Write to Adam Orlando at Mining.com.au
Images: Aureka
