Comet Resources has pulled off something of a coup, entering into an agreement to acquire the mineralised extensions to its Santa Teresa gold mine in northern Mexico. The company is looking to secure the La Sorpresa III lease to the north-west of its mine, said to host a number of old shafts and workings, where historical records show production grading at an incredible 280 grams per tonne gold.
La Sorpresa III would extend Comet’s footprint on Mexico’s forgotten Baja California goldfield and leave it holding more than 6km of strike along the structure hosting the high-grade Santa Teresa mine.
It has paid La Sorpresa’s current owners, American International Ventures, US$25,000 for 90-day exclusive period to conduct due diligence over the new tenure. Should Comet proceed with the deal it will pay $200,000 in cash and $400,000 in scrip to acquire 51 per cent of the new tenement. The company can move to 100 per cent ownership by paying an additional $200,000 in cash and $300,000 in shares to the vendors.
American International Ventures will retain a 1.5 per cent net smelter royalty on any future production sourced from the tenement.
Comet Resources Managing Director, Matthew O’Kane said:“The addition of La Sorpresa III to the Santa Teresa project is potentially transformational. Our existing JORC Resource is in the north-western corner of our existing tenement package and its open at the boundary with La Sorpresa III. With La Sorpresa III we will have the opportunity to test the interpreted north-western extension of mineralisation for inclusion into future resource updates.”
Comet’s Santa Teresa gold project immediately south of the town of El Alamo takes in four granted mineral claims covering more than 500 hectares and taking in the high-grade Santa Teresa gold deposit.
Gold production in the El Alamo district dates back to 1888, with the region estimated to have produced between 100,000 and 200,000 ounces of gold from a network of alluvial and artisanal workings, in addition to the underground mine at Santa Teresa. Gold production in the district was curtailed by the Mexican Revolution in 1912, with the field lying dormant until it drew the attention of explorers in the mid-2000s.
In recent years, the goldfield has attracted a select group of US, Canadian and Australian explorers. Drilling undertaken in the late-2000s by the previous owner of the Santa Teresa mine, Canada’s Premier Gold Mines, returned a wealth of high-grade intercepts that surprisingly are yet to be followed up in any detail.
Intercepts from diamond drilling include 2m at 32.4 g/t gold from only 19 metres, 3.9m at 39 g/t gold from 121m and 1m at an incredible 958.4 g/t gold from 239m down-hole – more than enough to pique the interest of a curious gold company.
Enter Comet Resources, which acquired the project in 2020 and quickly undertook a detailed assessment of the deposit, resulting in the estimation of a JORC resource weighing in at 369,000 tonnes grading at a healthy 7.47 g/t gold.
Interestingly, the company’s ongoing geological evaluation of Santa Teresa showed the deposit remained unconstrained by drilling and open both along strike and at depth, presenting an enticing target for future drill testing. Comet has now designed an extensive diamond drilling program to test the extensions to the deposit and is poised to kick off drilling in the weeks ahead.
However, with the company now close to securing the northern extensions to the high-grade Santa Teresa gold mine and its upcoming drilling program fully permitted, all that remains is for a suitable contractor to arrive on site and spin up the rods as Comet looks to build its resource inventory and unlock the wealth of this intriguing goldfield in northern Mexico.
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