Source : THE AGE NEWS
By Craig Nolan
Advance Metals has produced a series of impressive gold intersections from an eight-hole drilling program for 1665.4 metres at its Happy Valley and Twist Creek prospects, which is part of the wider 418-square-kilometre Myrtleford project in the northeastern Victorian Goldfields.
The company has now given the thumbs-up to an expanded 10-hole campaign to further test Happy Valley and two additional, nearby prospective zones.
Drill core from Advance Metals Myrtleford gold project in the Victorian Goldfields displays visible gold hosted within milky quartz veining from about 180 metres downhole.
The first four holes of the completed program targeted the company’s Happy Valley prospect and hit gold mineralisation in every hole, including 8.2m going 22.4 grams per tonne (g/t) in hole one, 2.9m at 6.7g/t from hole two and a significant interval of 7.5m running at 47.9g/t in hole three.
The company’s fourth diamond drill hole returned 6.1m at 3.5g/t gold from 245m, including a high-grade 1.1m slice at 18.2g/t from 250m.
The results from the first four holes follow a previous extraordinary hit of 11.5m at 160.4g/t by a former owner, which included a monster 2430g/t gold hit across 0.6m.
Assays are pending for holes five to eight from drilling at Twist Creek, 45 kilometres west-northwest of Happy Valley. Holes five and six were drilled at Advance’s Scandinavia prospect and holes seven and eight were hammered into the Victoria prospect area. The company expects to receive these results in June.
The additional 10-hole program will see six diamond holes plunged into Advance’s Happy Valley ground, targeting extensions to the high-grade mineralisation up and down plunge and along strike. The company will focus on the area drilled by hole three of 7.5m at 47.9g/t.
Two maiden diamond holes will test the nearby Sheard’s Reef prospect, 1.5km west-northwest of Happy Valley. The remaining two holes will target high-grade gold 4.5km to the east-southeast at Queen of the Hills, aiming to extend drilling across a 6km section of the Happy Valley trend within the Myrtleford project.
Management says less than 1 per cent of the strike has been tested by drilling to date. The area hosts many historic gold mines the company believes were worked to only shallow depths, providing the project with substantial exploration upside.
The drilling program is expected to kick-off in about four weeks, subject to receipt of the relevant approvals. Advance recently raised $2.55 million from a share placement and is fully funded to complete an expanded drilling program at the project site.
Management is also considering further drilling at Twist Creek and its Barwidgee prospect in the central portion of the Myrtleford project, pending receipt of drilling results.
The company recently revealed stellar grades from an 85-sample rock chip program, with grab samples of 42.5g/t, 26.2g/t and 23.2g/t gold at Sheards Reef, along trend from the Happy Valley drill site.
At Barwidgee, peak values of gold going 24.8g/t and 21.9g/t were found at its Quatre Bas and Happy Go Lucky prospects, with 12.8g/t at the company’s Initiator prospect, 2km northwest.
Its highest-grade find of 66.7g/t and a solid 24.3g/t were found at the company’s Victoria prospect, and rock-solid grades of 39.1g/t and 23.7g/t were recorded at the Danish prospect, both within its Twist Creek ground.
The strong grab samples from different areas within the Myrtleford project illustrate its potential, with many prospective areas untested by the drill bit.
Advance recently signed a binding agreement with Serra Energy Metals Corporation to acquire 80 per cent of Myrtleford and separate Beaufort gold project via a joint venture.
Under the deal, Advance will acquire 80 per cent of the fully paid shares in E79 Resources, the legal owner of the tenements comprising the two Victorian projects.
The company is purchasing its stake in E79 via an initial issue of company shares, followed by three staged payments made by issuing further shares, plus a 1 per cent net smelter royalty from gold production.
The promising Beaufort project is in Victoria’s southwest, 145km west of Melbourne. The region has produced more than one million ounces of alluvial gold. It is close to the world-class, 22M-ounce Bendigo goldfields and the renowned Fosterville underground gold mine, which produced more than 300,000 ounces of high-grade gold in 2023.
The company also has the drill bit spinning at its latest project grounds in Mexico, where it kicked off a diamond drilling campaign at its recently acquired, high-grade Yoquivo silver-gold project in southwest Chihuahua.
Drilling is planned to test along strike and down dip from previous stunning intersections, which included 6.2m grading a massive 2404g/t silver with a 17.2g/t gold slice from 64.8m depth, 1.2m going 1895g/t silver and 34g/t gold from 47.3m, and 1.5m at 1473g/t silver and 4g/t gold from 100.2m.
A further impressive 3.05m hit returned 668g/t silver and 3.9g/t gold from 117.8m.
Yoquivo hosts a foreign estimate mineral resource of 937,000 tonnes grading 570g/t silver-equivalent for 17.23M ounces silver-equivalent from more than 16,500m of drilling.
Advance’s Myrtleford project appears to have plenty of potential upside at Happy Valley and Twist Creek. Throw in the Beaufort project sitting in a world-class zone and its promising Mexican project and the company might be on a path to a bright future.
Is your ASX-listed company doing something interesting? Contact: mattbirney@bullsnbears.com.au
