Barton Gold has executed two Native Title Mining Agreements, or “NTMA’s” for exploration with the Gawler Ranges Aboriginal Corporation RNTB, or “GRAC” with the most important of the agreements involving three exploration tenements covering the entirety of the Tunkillia project.
A second agreement was inked to cover a small portion of one lease over the Tarcoola project area 70 kilometres north of Tunkillia’s current 965,000-ounce gold deposit.
Company management said the new NTMA’s incorporate all historical clearances and lay the groundwork for an updated framework of cooperation between the parties.
The latest bundle of agreements comes just a few months after Barton locked down another NTMA with the Antakirinja Matu-Yankunytjatjara Aboriginal Corporation, or “AMYAC” in respect of the exploration ground covering much of its high-grade Tarcoola Channel gold play.
Barton Gold already had an NTMA covering the mining lease surrounding its Perseverance pit at Tarcoola and it appears the company now has all of its heritage ducks in a row ahead of its looming IPO on the ASX that is planned for later this year.
Barton Gold Managing Director, Alexander Scanlon said: “The Company continues working diligently to advance multiple value-add workstreams for the Tarcoola and Tunkillia Projects. We are very pleased to execute these new NTMAs with GRAC as an updated framework for cooperation in the region, in particular as we advance our planning for future exploration programmes at the Tunkillia Project where we are targeting significant extensions of mineralisation and satellite targets at the 965,000oz Au 223 Deposit.”
Located around 530km north-west of Adelaide, Barton Gold’s Tunkillia gold project is South Australia’s largest undeveloped gold resource. The Tunkillia ground forms only a part of the company’s landholdings in the region which amount to some 4,735 square kilometres of the uber-rich Gawler Craton mineral field.
Barton’s ground is effectively split into three main project areas - the Challenger field, the Tarcoola project and the Tunkillia goldfield. Challenger lies 100km north-west of Tarcoola and takes in the company’s mothballed Challenger gold plant.
The Tarcoola project sits in the immediate surrounds of the historic mining centre which is central to the company’s regional footprint and also hosts the Perseverance open pit.
The Tunkillia goldfield sits a further 70km south of Tarcoola and boasts Barton’s largest gold resource to date, almost one million ounces. Not only is it Barton’s largest undeveloped resource, it is South Australia’s largest gold-only resource.
Barton is planning to have the rotary diviner drill test further extensions to Tunkillia in the near future. The Tunkillia project has at least four other gold hotspots along strike and also on an adjacent trend which are currently not in the Area 223 resource base.
Previous drilling at Area 191 and the Tomahawk prospect returned some solid gold intercepts such as 4 metres at 12.3 grams per tonne, 1m at 23.8 g/t and 2m at 10.6 g/t.
With a public listing looming large now, indigenous support in the bank and the drill rods set to spin across a growing number of scintillating targets, Barton Gold is starting to get itself on a few radars.
Is your ASX-listed company doing something interesting? Contact: matt.birney@businessnews.com.au
By Matt Birney
