TNM Drill Down: Lundin leads week’s top assays with Fruta del Norte in Ecuador

Our TNM Drill Down features highlights of the top gold assays of the past week. Drill holes are ranked by gold grade x width, as identified by our sister company Mining Intelligence (www.miningintelligence.com).

Projects in Ecuador, Australia and Canada led the Nov. 18-25 period. 

Drilling at Lundin Gold’s (TSX: LUG) Fruta del Norte project in southeast Ecuador topped the chart, followed by De Grey Mining’s (ASX: DEG) Mallina in northwest Australia and Auteco Minerals’ (ASX: AUT) Pickle Crow project in northern Ontario. 

Diamond drill hole FDN21-112 at Fruta del Norte cut 163.2 metres from the surface grading 10.76 grams gold per tonne for a grade x width of 1,756.03. Hole FDN22-229 returned 101.3 metres from surface grading 12.57 grams gold, hole FDN21-165 cut 98.3 metres grading 12.67 grams gold, and hole FDN22-198 returned 51.5 metres grading 17.93 grams gold. 

The results confirmed the continuity of mineralization along the southern extension of the project’s inferred resources and support the completion of a mineral reserve and resource update planned for the first quarter of 2023, Ron Hochstein, president and chief executive officer of Lundin, said in a new release on Nov. 21. 

“Several of these results suggest that Fruta del Norte remains open at depth and underlines the significant potential for resource growth through the near mine exploration program,” Hochstein said. 

The Fruta del Norte deposit holds an inferred resource of about 11.6 million tonnes averaging 5.69 grams gold per tonne for contained metal of 2.1 million oz. of gold. A total of 18,340 metres of underground drilling across 88 drill holes has been completed, the company said. 

The Fruta del Norte mine, about 650 km south of the capital, Quito, is the company’s main producing asset. Its third-quarter output of 121,635 oz. of gold at an all-in sustaining cost of US$807 per oz. sold puts it on track to meet the upper end of its production guidance of 430,000 to 460,000 oz. and the lower end of or slightly below its all-in sustaining cost guidance of U$820 to US$870 per oz. sold, the company said earlier this month. 

Second this past week was De Grey Mining’s reverse-circulation drilling on the Antwerp target at the Mallina project about 85 km south of Port Hedland on the north coast of Western Australia. The company reported drill hole HEAC920 cut two metres  grading 261 grams gold per tonne for a grade x width of 522 from 36 metres downhole . 

Other results include hole HAC654, which cut 1 metre grading 41.6 grams gold from 59 metres downhole, and HAC349, which cut 3 metres grading 2.7 grams gold per tonne from 57 metres downhole. 

Follow-up work at Antwerp will include extensional and infill reverse circulation and diamond drilling aimed at defining new resources and discovering a new large scale, new surface intrusion, De Grey technical director Andy Beckwith said in news release on Nov. 22.

“Recent air core and reverse circulation drilling has identified new prospective altered intrusions, anomalous gold zones and areas of encouraging multi-element geochemistry within the 15 km long by 10 km wide Greater Hemi Corridor, east and west of the existing deposits at Hemi,” Beckwith said. “Reverse circulation drilling will recommence in the New Year at Antwerp, to the west of Diucon and Eagle (targets), to better test this prospective trend.”

Rounding out the top three results last week, Auteco reported diamond drill hole AUDD0333 cut 0.4 metre grading 1,020 grams gold per tonne for a grade x width of 408 from 809.9 metre downhole in the Tyson discovery at its Pickle Crow project. 

Also, at the site about 400 km north of Thunder Bay, Ont., hole AUDD0315 returned 0.4 metre grading 71.9 grams gold from 126.1 metre downhole, and hole AUDD0331 cut 0.4 metre grading 29.8 grams gold from 62.9 metres downhole. 

The results are important because they are outside the inferred resource and show the opportunity to increase the resource, the company said in a news release on Nov. 22. 

“We are onto a significant new mineralized system that has not been historically mined,” Auteco chief executive officer Darren Cooke said in the release. “We extended the known depth of the vein system by more than 200 vertical metres.”