Larvotto Resources is on a roll of good news. The company’s share price nudged $1 a share on Friday to claim fabled 10-bagger status for the first time since it bought its Hillgrove antimony-gold project in New South Wales for a song 18 months ago. It also continues to kick goals at Hillgrove with a string of high-grade gold intercepts for its latest drilling campaign.
The best of the new hits was 0.6 metres grading at a stunning 183.5 grams per tonne (g/t) gold equivalent from 493m at its Bakers Creek and Eleanora-Garibaldi prospects.
The four diamond rigs at both sites have completed more than 8400m of drilling since November and all the signs point to rich mineralisation near existing underground workings that could play a critical role in the company’s plans to restart production.
At Bakers Creek, the rig hit 8.3m grading 10.39g/t gold equivalent from 408.7m, including a 0.76m section running at 106.04 g/t gold equivalent from 412.6m. The find followed a previous big discovery of 31m grading 65.8g/t gold at the prospect.
Bakers Creek doesn’t yet have a formal resource estimate but the prospect’s consistent high-grade results across multiple zones - including Little Reef, Big Reef and the newly discovered Baalgammon Reef targets - paint a promising picture.
Bakers Creek’s enriched zones appear as subvertical stacked lodes in both the hanging wall and footwall, which further highlight the prospect’s geological appeal.
The company says its drilling program has revealed plenty of mineralised spots and hints at the strong chance of developing a defined resource in the future.
Larvotto Resources managing director Ron Heeks said: “Ongoing drilling at the Eleanora-Garibaldi mining centre continues to prove up high-grade mineralisation near existing infrastructure. We are particularly excited with the most recent round of assays received from hole BKC018 at Bakers Creek, which returned spectacular intercepts of up to 0.6m at 180g/t gold and 0.76m at 104g/t gold.”
The results at the company’s Eleanora-Garibaldi prospect were equally impressive, with a 2.9m intercept at 20.13g/t gold equivalent in a 5m section grading 8.38g/t gold equivalent from 310.9m.
In another hole, the drill bit revealed 5m running at 8.38g/t gold equivalent inside a 20.7m slice grading 3.49g/t gold equivalent from 146m.
A two-stage drilling process is underway at Garibaldi. Phase one tested an area below the existing resource and has proved up an additional 120m of down-dip extension. The results will add further ounces to an existing inferred and indicated resource of 2.35 million tonnes grading 6.6g/t gold equivalent for 372,000 ounces of gold and 17,000 tonnes of antimony.
Phase two was designed to retrieve 200 kilograms of ore-zone material, which has been sent for metallurgical testing.
Like Bakers Creek, the Eleanora-Garibaldi prospect is close to existing underground workings at Hillgrove that could provide a source of low-cost, high-grade ore for Larvotto’s early mining plans.
Armed with piles of new exploration data, Larvotto has now pulled the trigger on an accelerated exploration program by bringing in a fifth diamond rig. It has also fast-tracked a geophysical survey to uncover additional targets in the area.
Larvotto’s flagship Hillgrove project is shaping up to be a classy development. With more than $150 million worth of processing infrastructure already in place, the company is on track to soon deliver a definitive feasibility study.
Production is slated to kick off by the end of the year and the company aims to deliver 5400t of antimony - about 7 per cent of global supply - alongside 41,000 ounces of gold in high-grade concentrate and doré bars.
Larvotto’s prefeasibility study last year forecast an eye-popping EBITDA of $93m annually for a seven-year mine life, using a US$2000 (A$3068) per ounce gold price and US$15,000 (A$23,015) per tonne for antimony.
Gold is currently trading at more than US$3000 (A$4800) per ounce and antimony at a near-record US$35,000/t (A$55,000/t) per tonne, which means the project’s numbers appear to be getting better and better.
With an all-in sustaining cost of production now estimated to be deep into negative territory when antimony credits are applied, Hillgrove expects to recoup its $73m capital cost well within a year.
Even more impressively, Larvotto acquired the entire Hillgrove project just for $8m - including a $5m environmental bond - making it one of 2023’s most strategic and profitable acquisitions.
Today’s results appear to show that the project’s development potential remains well and truly open-ended. As the price of both gold and antimony continues to boom, it seems Larvotto’s project could not be better timed.
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By James Pearson
