Gold explorer Torque Metals (ASX:TOR) has received approval for a Plan of Work (PoW) for an upcoming drilling phase at its Paris Gold Project in Western Australia.
The $12.76 million market capitalisation company says this campaign will aim to spatially increase the gold-mineralised zones and explore adjacent parallel structures that were uncovered by geophysical imagery and machine learning algorithms.
This news comes after the company received gold assays that returned ‘strong’ gold intersections from a recent drill program at Paris.
Some of the best intercepts recorded include drillhole 23PRC090 with 27m @ 3.96g/t Au from surface, including 3m @ 27g/t Au from 24m. This hit came from 100m north of the Paris historical open pit.
From the southern mineralised lode, Torque reports drillhole 23PRC079 hit 7m @ 8.04gt Au from 132m, including 3m @ 13.31g/t Au from 133m.
Diamond tail drilling extended the mineralised structure west of the Paris pit by 70m, with a top result of 2.31m @ 4.67g/t Au from 229.39m.
At the HHH prospect, Torque struck 5m @ 3.99g/t Au from 66m. The company says the assays from this prospect have extended mineralisation in the area 150m to the east.
Finally, drilling between the HHH and Paris open pits confirmed a new mineralised trend dubbed the Eva prospect. Results from this include 1m @ 1.09g/t Au from 22m and 10m @ 1.07 g/t Au from 38m.
Commenting on the results, Torque Metals Managing Director Cristian Moreno says: “We are especially encouraged not only by the extension of the mineralised structure at Paris, 70m towards the west from the last mineralised drillhole, but also with the discovery of 2 new, very shallow mineralised structures lateral to the historic HHH and Paris pits, lending credence to our geological model and out hypothesis that repetitive E-W trending gold systems could stitch together the presence of a pervasive gold belt between Paris-HHH-Observation prospects.
“Locating strong grades lateral to and on strike of the historic pits illustrates the potential of this underexplored area and supports our vision of an extensive gold camp“
Locating strong grades lateral to and on strike of the historic pits illustrates the potential of this underexplored area and supports our vision of an extensive gold camp.”
The company’s exploration and metallurgical testwork programs aim to establish whether the gold mineralisation from Paris can be deemed significant enough to warrant advancement towards the definition of a resource.
Metallurgical characterisation by Bureau Veritas, under the supervision of IMO, on core samples obtained from the Paris and Observation prospects is ‘well advanced’.
Testing is evaluating the metallurgical characteristics and gold recoverability in those deposits, which will definitively address any issues of the presence and potential impact of other elements in the mineralised zones.
Torque expects to report on this testwork in September 2023.
Torque Metals is an exploration company focused on its Paris Gold Project, covering 300km-square, which includes 9 wholly owned, granted, pre-native title mining licences, and multiple exploration licences situated in Western Australian goldfields.
As of 30 June 2023, the company had $2.9 million cash at hand, according to its latest quarterly report.
Write to Aaliyah Rogan at Mining.com.au
Images: Torque Metals
