An intriguing listing is set to hit the ASX in December with the company, 8 Au Limited, offering a handful of impressively diverse Western Australia tenements prospective for gold, nickel, lithium and platinum group elements. All of the company’s projects are located in tier one jurisdictions and all have returned either significant drill intersections or anomalous sampling results that would seem to demand follow up work.
The company has plans to do just that.
8 Au is seeking to raise a minimum of $8 million and as much as $12m by means of an initial public offering via the issuance of between 40 million and 60 million shares at an offer price of $0.20 per share.
All five of 8 Au’s projects are in WA spanning almost the entire stretch of the state. The five projects from west to east are the Yallalong project hosting nickel, copper and platinum group elements, or “PGE’s” the East Pilbara project hosting gold, nickel and lithium, the Eastern Goldfields project hosting gold, the Plumridge project hosting gold and the East Kimberley hosting nickel, copper and PGE’s.
The company’s potentially plentiful portfolio of projects are located across a diverse landholding that host favourable geology with significant recent discoveries nearby. Major players encompassing 8 Au’s tenure include one of the success stories of 2021, Global Lithium - its share price has more than tripled since listing earlier in the year – as well as the soon to-be-producing Calidus and industry heavyweights DeGrey, Anglogold Ashanti, Northern Star and IGO.
The East Pilbara gold, copper, nickel and lithium project comprises the Talga Joint Venture, or “JV” and has a right to earn-in up to 80 per cent in addition to the Railway Well project. The East Pilbara project covers a combined 362 square kilometres about 30 kilometres north of Marble Bar in the Pilbara craton and is regarded by the company as a high priority drill target.
8 Au’s Talga JV project area covers some interesting and prospective mineralised greenstone-granite terranes in the Pilbara. The Bamboo Creek gold mine, which historically housed some 779,350 tonnes of gold grading a juicy 8.15 grams per tonne, sits just 15km to the west of the Talga JV. In addition, the Warrawoona gold mine sits a meagre 40km to the south and hosts an admirable 1.5m ounce gold resource. Both deposits sit in a similar structural setting to the Talga JV project and are sandwiched between granite intrusions to the north and south.
Within the widespread gold and base metal anomalism encountered at the Talga JV project, two compelling prospects have shone through - namely the Razorback prospect and the Cord prospect.
The Razorback prospect has seen some solid historical grades including a 16 metre parcel going 1.99 g/t gold from surface, 8m grading 1.57 g/t gold from 50m and 9m going 1.12 g/t gold from 62m.
Razorback is a mere 10km east along strike from Global Lithium’s Twin Veins project, where recent drilling intersected 12m going a solid 2.95 g/t gold from 37m.
A recent IP survey at Razorback has identified a smorgasbord of 11 gold targets, including six high priority targets where, importantly, drill testing has only occurred over 700m of a total 4km worth of strike.
The company also boasts the Cord prospect, also located within the East Pilbara project which hosts a strongly gossanous volcanogenic massive sulphide horizon that occurs over 14km of strike. Only a small portion of the Cord prospect has been drill tested, however several anomalous results were intersected including a 16m parcel going 158 parts per billion gold, 5 g/t silver, 3212 parts per million copper, 50ppm lead and 101ppm zinc from 19m downhole. Another polymetallic historical sniff at the Cord prospect yielded a 10m section grading 86ppb gold, 6 g/t silver, 6099ppm copper, 23ppm lead and 57ppm zinc from 26m downhole.
Digging a little deeper, the Talga JV project appears to not only offer up precious and base metals but even a hugely prospective lithium target. Interestingly, just 10km to the south of the Talga JV is Global Lithium Resource’s 10.5 million tonne Archer lithium deposit grading 1 per cent lithium. Global Lithium, which listed on the ASX in May this year, has seen its share price march steadily skyward since, peaking above $0.70 earlier this month from a $0.20 listing in May.
8 Au has noted the southern areas of the Talga JV project host a similar geological environment to the lithium mineralisation where Global Lithium is situated to the south. The southern regions of the Talga JV area are proximal to the Moolyella Monzogranite and other late-stage granite intrusions which, intriguingly 8 Au believes may be the source of the regional pegmatite lithium mineralisation.
Previous explorers of the southern section of the Talga JV tenements identified lithium-bearing pegmatites with one anomalous rock chip returning 0.22 per cent lithium.
A soil sampling geochemical program is planned in the southern section of the Talga JV area testing the pegmatites for lithium prospectivity.
The east Pilbara project area also hosts the Railway Well polymetallic region prospective for nickel, copper, PGE’s, copper, zinc and gold. Previous explorers at Railway Well identified two prospect areas called the Pear Creek prospect and the Coongan Siding prospect that both host quartz veining and sulphides with alteration zones.
Adding further weight to the prospectivty of the Pear Creek prospect, electromagnetic geophysical surveys have identified a conductive target associated with a surface gossan that returned an assay going a solid 2 per cent nickel. Another nickel prospect sits along strike from Pear Creek and returned a rock chip grading 0.33 per cent nickel, a whopping 20.3 per cent copper and 560ppm cobalt. The strike length of the ultramafic unit runs for approximately 5km.
The Plumridge project is the second cab off the rank in terms of priority. It is located in the Albany Fraser Oregon of Western Australia and covers approximately 247 square kilometres of prospective land.
Plumridge sits in what would truly be considered tier one exploration territory. The Tropicana gold juggernaut, which houses approximately 7.9 million ounces of gold, is just 70km to the north whilst another goliath, the indomitable Nova Bollinger mine sits approximately 230km to the south. Ranked behind Glencore’s Murrin Murrin mine, Nova Bollinger is Australia’s second largest nickel mine and hosts a mighty 13.1 million tonnes grading 2 per cent nickel, 0.8 per cent copper and 0.07 per cent cobalt.
Previous work at Plumridge includes 10,000 shallow auger samples that defined a surface gold contour of over 10ppb, that is 8km in strike and up to 1.5km wide.
Aircore drilling at Plumridge has also highlighted gold anomalism that remains untested into the underlying bedrock with intercepts including a 10m hit grading 8.3 g/t gold from 119m and a 4m intercept going 1.67 g/t gold from 57m. Previous aircore campaigns were too shallow to effectively test gold in basement rock, according to the company, and it has plans to correct this not long after listing.
Three key prospects have been identified at Plumridge called Cobra, Mustang and Stingray and are all located on the Harris Lake Shear Zone. The Plumridge project area is surrounded by other market heavyweights Anglogold Ashanti to the north and south, FMG to the west and IGO to the east.
8 Au’s Eastern Goldfields project has equally drill-ready targets and is made up by a prospective landholding, including tenements centred on the historic gold mining sites of Ora Banda and Dunsville located approximately 60km northeast of the WA gold mining mecca of Kalgoorlie. Notably, all the company’s Eastern Goldfields tenure is in proximity to a number of ore processing options.
Another prospective tenure under 8 Au’s belt is the Slattery Dam project, located within the Eastern Goldfields which has had two significant gold nugget patch discoveries. The company says these patch discoveries highlight the geological interplay between the Bullabulling shear and the Dunsville anticline.
8 Au has a number of significant plays in the Eastern Goldfields. The Carnage prospect sits near the regional scale Zuleika shear and boasts over 20 million ounces of historical gold production. Significant gold deposits along the Zuleika shear include Blue Fennel, Kundana, Zuleika, Hawkins Find and Bullant. Previous intercepts at Carnage include a 9m hit going 9.67 g/t gold from a shallow 9m downhole and 5m grading 5.43 g/t from 51m downhole.
Christmas Reef is another prospect that sits within the Eastern Goldfields project area and has significant gold intersections beneath historical workings which the company says requires further work to assess the gold-bearing structures. It appears sporadic gold mineralisation associated with historical workings extend along a strike of about 2km with much of the area still untested by drilling.
Adding to its line-up, 8 Au has land prospective for nickel, copper, PGE’s and gold in the east Kimberly in addition to tenure in the western Yilgarn that are prospective for nickel, copper and PGE’s
Money raised from the initial public offer will initially be utilised to drill and soil sample the Razorback prospect at the Talga JV project. Target generation and geophysical surveying will also occur concurrently at the Eastern Goldfields project.
8 Au appears poised to jump quickly from the gates post listing with the drill rig to be set loose towards the end of the year at both the Slattery and Carnage prospects in the Eastern Goldfields project area in addition to target generation work commencing at Plumridge.
All projects have regional infrastructure and sit within haulage distance to third-party processing operations.
The company is headed up by Chief Executive Officer, Bevan Wakelam, who has 25 years of experience holding senior geological and marketing roles across a number of commodities.
The spread of projects across some of WA’s most venerated exploration districts is hard to ignore. On the surface, it appears 8 Au has the right rocks, with the right minerals and importantly a number of compelling locations where to start the hunt. With a solid mix of gold and base metal projects mixed in with minerals critical to the successful transition of the green economy, 8 Au appears to have an impressively diverse asset range and seems more than equipped to hit the ground running in whichever direction the commodity markets take it.
Is your ASX-listed company doing something interesting? Contact: matt.birney@businessnews.com.au
By Matt Birney
