Source : THE AGE NEWS
By James Pearson
Pacgold Limited has lit the fuse on a drilling blitz across a 30-kilometre-long fault zone at its Alice River gold project in Far North Queensland after tabling a maiden 854,000-ounce resource.
The company says its systematic exploration approach of targeting extensions has created a game-changing resource. PacGold says its exploration program has successfully produced consistent results to expand the mineralised footprint and opened the door to what could be a major multi-million-ounce discovery.
A track-mounted drill rig at Pacgold Limited’s Alice River gold project in far north Queensland.
The company’s main Central prospect has delivered an indicated resource of 4.7 million tonnes grading 1.5 grams per tonne (g/t) for 229,000 ounces of gold. It includes 45,000 ounces grading 1.7g/t in an underground section.
When the resource tally is taken into account across all of Pacgold’s prospects, the project’s total indicated and inferred resource now sits at 12.2mt grading 1.2g/t gold for 474,000 ounces at a 0.5g/t cut-off. This is part of a broader global inventory of 26.7Mt at 1.01g/t for 854,000 ounces.
‘We still have an enormous area to explore with multiple high priority targets along the nearly 30km of the known Alice River fault.’
Pacgold Limited managing director Matthew Boyes
Management says only 5 per cent of the known mineralised strike has been tested to date and the company’s main resource areas at its Central, Southern and Posie prospects remain open in all directions.
More than half of the resource – about 500,000 ounces – is packed into the top 400 metres from surface. The company says this has opened the door to a low-strip, bulk-tonnage open pit operation as an obvious launchpad.
Early metallurgical results from the project have also impressed, with gold recoveries averaging 93.3 per cent. Nearly half of the resource will be recoverable using a simple gravity separation process.
Armed with the new resource, Pacgold is running full steam ahead with its first complete drill season in three years. The company has already completed 2000m of a planned 10,000m reverse circulation program to target under-drilled areas within the Central prospect and extensions along strike.
The rigs will then shift south to the Posie and Southern zones, before tackling a slew of regional targets, including Jerry Dodds, Victoria and The Shadows. More than 12km of strike length is on the cards for drill testing.
Once the reverse circulation and air core data has been crunched, Pacgold intends to call in a diamond drill to chase depth extensions. A regional air core campaign will continue to chase geochemical anomalies that hint at broader system potential.
Given the magnitude of the gold system, Pacgold says it is keen to pursue a high-stakes game of scale. The immediate goal is to convert the inferred ounces to an indicated category and expand the mineralised footprint.
Zooming out, the bigger picture appears even more compelling. Early signs suggest Alice River might not be a single deposit, but rather part of a much larger multi-million-ounce gold system.
Pacgold Limited managing director Matthew Boyes said: “Having now confirmed the mineralisation style is robust, we have been able to demonstrate very large tonnages of gold mineralisation. We still have an enormous area to explore with multiple high priority targets waiting to be drill tested all along the nearly 30km of the known Alice River fault.”
The Alice River project sits within the prolific North East Queensland mineral province, which is also home to tier-one deposits such as Ravenswood, Kidston and Pajingo. Pacgold’s tenements straddle a 30km mineralised corridor hosted within the Alice River fault zone, a structure interpreted to host intrusion-related gold systems.
The project’s geological framework points to a major epizonal intrusion-related system, with strong structural and geochemical similarities to global giants, such as the Fort Knox gold mine in the United States and the Hemi discovery in WA.
With the rigs humming, geophysics lighting up the ground and a breakout maiden resource already in the bag, Pacgold is setting a cracking pace at Alice River. The company’s drill bit is chasing far more than just ounces – it’s chasing scale, momentum and, potentially, a place among Australia’s next major gold discoveries.
Pacgold’s growing pipeline of high-priority targets and a relentless exploration agenda appears to have primed the punters to stay on their toes as the company pushes Alice River toward multi-million-ounce territory.
Is your ASX-listed company doing something interesting? Contact: mattbirney@bullsnbears.com.au
