TNM Drill Down: Canada’s East Coast delivers week’s best gold assays

Our TNM Drill Down features highlights of the top gold assays of the past week (June 2 – June 9). Drill holes are ranked by gold grade x width, as identified by our data provider Mining Intelligence.

New Found Gold (TSXV: NFG) reported last week’s best gold assay from the Iceberg target at its Queensway project in Newfoundland. On June 5, the company reported that diamond drill hole NFGC-23-1210 returned 27.1 metres grading 105.32 grams gold per tonne, from a depth of 59.8 metres, for a width x grade value of 2,849. Iceberg, discovered in March is a high-grade surface zone about 300 metres northeast of the Keats Main zone. High-grade mineralization occurs throughout the results, with nine sample intervals showing grades higher than 100 grams gold. “Discovering high-grade gold mineralization of this magnitude over such a thick interval is rare in nature, and yet, Queensway has produced several of these high-caliber hits across a multitude of zones,” said Melissa Render, VP of Exploration. Iceberg is drill-defined over a strike length of 550 metres and sits in the eastern extent of the Keats-Baseline Fault Zone, with Iceberg-Iceberg East open in all directions. New Found’s ongoing drilling is part of a 500,000-metre program at Queensway, with assay results for about 55,135 metres pending.

The week’s second-best assay came from West Africa, where Predictive Discovery (ASX: PDI) reported on June 5 that it had drilled 37.5 metres grading 14.5 grams gold from 68.5 metres depth, for a width x grade value of 544 at its Bankan project in Guinea. Hole KKODD006A was among nine holes drilled at the Bankan Creek (BC) target, which along with results from the NE Bankan (NEB) target, will be included in a resource update planned for the third quarter. “Encouragingly, the NEB results include good intercepts outside the current mineral resource, both below the resource pit shell and in the footwall adjacent to the pit shell,” said managing director Andrew Pardey. According to a previous resource update in February, the NEB open pit hosts indicated resources of 42.7 million tonnes grading 1.27 grams gold for 1.7 million contained oz. and inferred resources of 24.7 million tonnes grading 2.23 grams gold for 1.7 million ounces. The NEB underground deposit has 2.2 million inferred tonnes grading 4.75 grams gold for 335,000 oz. of metal. The BC open pit deposit hosts 7.2 million inferred tonnes grading 1.43 grams gold for 331,000 ounces.

The third-best assay of last week came from Ramelius Resources’ (ASX: RMS) Penny project in Western Australia. On June 7, the gold producer reported that hole PNDD009, drilled in the Penny North deposit returned 4.5 metres grading 75. 2 grams gold, from a depth of 302.5 metres, for a width x grade value of 338. Of the roughly 4,750 metres drilled at Penny North since April, the first 10 holes returned very high-grade assay results in the southern extent of the quartz vein ore body. They also contained massive sulphides which compose up to 40% of the core volume with minor visible gold discovered. Penny North is adjacent to the underground Penny Mine, which is moving towards full production. “It is pleasing to see our high grade Penny mine really start hitting its straps from a mining, haulage and exploration point of view,” said managing director Mark Zeptner. “We are also encouraged by the very decent exploration hits outside the current resource envelope [that are] adding high margin ounces to the project and extending the overall mine life.” Penny hosts reserves of 490,000 tonnes grading 15 grams gold for 230,000 ounces, and a resource of 530,000 tonnes 17.2 grams gold for 290,000 oz. according to an update last September.