This article is a sponsored feature from Mining.com.au partner Evergold Minerals. It is not financial advice. Talk to a registered financial expert before making investment decisions.
When a company picks up a gold project in a well-explored region, there’s usually a wealth of data available across ground that has already been picked over.
That is not so much the case with Evergold Minerals’ (ASX:EG1) Mt Monger Gold Project in Western Australia’s Eastern Goldfields, which General Manager Tim Fraser says had been thoroughly drilled but still contained gaps with solid blue-sky potential.
“The project has a bit of an ugly duckling history,” Fraser says. “It’s been explored continuously and picked over for the last 100 years.”
“The first company to really put holes in the ground was Integra. It discovered the Salt Creek mine, which contained half a million ounces, and ended up building the Randalls Gold Mill right adjacent to it.”
The 1.2-million-tonnes-per-annum Randalls Mill is now owned by Vault Minerals (ASX:VAU) which is in the midst of a $5.6 billion takeover by Genesis Minerals (ASX:GMD) — and Mt Monger sits just 5km away.
To the south of the project there’s also Lefroy Exploration (ASX:LEX) with the operating Lucky Strike Gold Mine, and the Burns Copper-Gold Project that could be in production early next year.
“MTM [Mt Monger Resources now called Metallium (ASX:MTM)] drilled the project five or six years ago, but the gold price wasn’t in favour, so it didn’t get much love until we picked up Mt Monger and followed on from Integra’s work,” Fraser says.
Much of that work was filling in the gaps at the Duchess of York deposit — which has proven successful with recent maiden drilling confirming broad, shallow gold mineralisation including 25m at 3.47g/t gold from 3m, including 1m at 52.74g/t gold.
“Duchess of York looked like if you put a few more holes into it and it hung together, you could get something that was economical,” Fraser says.
“I saw a little bit of blue-sky potential there and thought we could potentially work something up and when we took a look at the database.
“There was a fair bit missing because you could go out to site and drive along a line and an old drill line, but there was no drilling in the database.
“So, we just stripped it back and went back to basics and started again, rebuilt the database from scratch, going back through all the old reports.”
Open-pit mining by 2027
Fraser says the results to date have given Evergold the confidence to kick off a resource definition program at the deposit next month, which will build towards a maiden resource and fast-track the project towards an open-pit mine within the next year.
“It is very shallow and pretty much all results are from surface or from 20–25m below surface,” Fraser says.
“We’ve only drilled down to about 120m, so the next program will probably deepen that out.
“But these results we’ve had straight off the bat make us confident that we’re off to a very good start at the project.”
Along with the resource-definition drilling, the company plans to commence EIS (WA Government Exploration Incentive Scheme) co-funded diamond drilling at the Gladiator, Tiger Lily, and Duchess of York prospects.
That’s all thanks to the company determining that the project hosts a large sanukitoid gold system. For those playing at home, sanukitoids are mantle-derived magmas that can rise through the crust, with their associated magmatic and hydrothermal processes potentially contributing to the formation of gold deposits.
Fraser says it’s like a porphyry gold system, except it occurs at much higher pressures and temperatures and contains more enriched metals such as zinc and arsenic.
“Once we had an understanding of what that sanukitoid model looked like at the Duchess of York and how that model produces gold across the region, we could step back and apply those learnings at a really early stage of the exploration cycle,” he says.
“So, a good fundamental understanding of how gold is forming in this area meant we could do the right kind of geophysics to unlock where we’re likely to see other styles of that mineralisation.
“And that’s brought up a lot of new targets in Tiger Lily and Captain Hook, it’s given us a bigger target at Kiaki Soaks, it’s created Gladiator and Crusader and Paladin. These are new targets all around Duchess of York.”
The company has also been testing these targets with aircore drilling in the last couple of months and expects to have some more results to announce in the coming weeks.
Leonora Gold Project next in line
At the Leonora Project, Evergold is focused on finalising preparations ahead of a resource upgrade program early next year, with mining ideally commencing in 2027.
“We’ve got a JORC-compliant resource at Craig’s Rest of nearly 50,000 ounces, so we really want to get everything lined up so that the moment we can get in there and start mining, we’re ready to go,” Fraser says.
Craig’s Rest has also returned ‘high grades’ from surface including 5m at 57.9g/t gold, and Fraser is confident the company could gain a further 100,000 ounces via the resource upgrade program.
“We’re thinking it’s open along strike and down dip, and it’s got a bit of a plunge to it that’s never been explored,” Fraser says.
“I think we can get it up to about 100,000 ounces with a good drilling program.”
Notably, most of the tenement package Evergold has built around Craig’s Rest was acquired from prospectors who had held the ground for the past 60 years. As a result, none of the tenements have been drilled, apart from two within the Craig’s Rest package.
Fraser also flags that Northern Star Resources (ASX:NST) has the Wonder underground gold mine about 2km from Evergold’s tenement boundary, which hosts a total resource of just over 1 million ounces. He says that structure runs all the way through the company’s property.
“We’ve had soil results of up to 200 parts per billion gold at Katalina and 150 parts per billion at Jack’s Reward, at Craig’s Rest. They sit along the structures we’ve mapped in the new magnetics survey,” Fraser says.
“Jack’s Reward is on the interpreted Wonder corridor, 3.5km along strike from Northern Star’s Wonder deposit, and it’s never been drilled.”
“We’re building up a bigger profile with an aim of about 200,000 ounces across the two projects at Mt Monger and Leonora.
“Our aspiration is around 200,000 ounces at Leonora. At Mt Monger, recent modelling and a better understanding of the geology have lifted our ambition from 100,000 ounces towards half a million. These are goals we’re working towards, not drilled-out numbers, and the next phase of drilling is what will tell us how close we can get.”
The company certainly has the board and leadership to do so, including Simon Lill, former chairman of De Grey Mining, who has experience running a company focused on making major discoveries.
Also on the board there’s Steve Morris who turned Auric Mining (ASX:AWJ) into a low-cost gold producer to deliver cash flow.
Plus, there’s Glenn Grayson who’s led a 2-million-ounce discovery at Pegasus during his time at Northern Star.
“That’s sort of our strategy,” Fraser says.
“Let’s get the low-hanging fruit into production so that we’ve got cash flow and don’t have to go out and dilute shareholders.
“We can fund our own exploration to then make the big half-million-ounce discoveries.
“We’ve got people who have done it before, and we can bring that experience together, go out there, deliver, and get it done.”
Write to Emma Davies at Mining.com.au
Images: Evergold Minerals
