Dateline Resources is shifting gears at its flagship Colosseum gold-rare earths project in California that gave it “market darling” status recently. The company is set to drill a trio of high-priority gold breccia pipes and a rare earth anomaly in November, just as it wraps up an all-important bankable feasibility study (BFS).
Dateline has three rigs in full flight at the project now, blasting through a 32-hole, 4,257-metre drill program that is now more than two-thirds done.
A diamond rig and two reverse circulation (RC) rigs are busy chasing down infill, extensional and geotechnical data to tighten the screws on the mine plan. Meanwhile, a fourth sonic rig has wrapped up tailings stability work, clearing the way for dry-stacked tailings and a future lift in resources.
Management says the BFS drilling blitz, which is scheduled to finish by November 7, is aimed squarely at converting lower confidence inferred ounces into solid mineable tonnes. More than 1,400 samples have already been shipped off to ALS’s labs in Reno.
However, the most tantalising part of the drilling campaign is perhaps yet to come.
Drilling is about to hit a new gear at Colosseum, with rigs primed to test a fresh batch of gold and rare earths targets uncovered through recent geophysical and geochemical sleuthing. Leading the charge are gold targets 1, 5 and 6 - each set up to potentially to be a repeat performance of Colosseum’s North and South pipes.
Target 1 lies just west of the pit, target 5 about a kilometre to the south and target 6 off to the southeast. All three are breccia pipe-style systems that bear a striking resemblance to the rich zones already underpinning the project’s 1.1-million-ounce gold resource.
However, the real wildcard lies just north of the existing gold resource where the rigs will also be out and about in the hunt for a potentially game-changing rare earths discovery.
A magneto-telluric (MT) geophysical survey successfully picked up several deep targets sitting near mapped fenite dykes in the area, which the company regards as highly prospective for rare earths.
When tested, anomaly 2200N lit up like a Christmas tree from 1000m depth to near surface and appears to be carbonatite-hosted, just like MP Materials’ famed Mountain Pass rare earths mine, only 10 kilometres away.
Colosseum already boasts a 27.1 million tonne resource going 1.26g/t gold. Notably, the iconic Mountain Pass rare earths mine, which is the only active rare earths producer in the US, has been producing rare earths at almost unheard of grades of around 6 per cent to 8 per cent total rare earth oxides. Dateline’s proximity to Mountain Pass has sharpened management’s focus in the project’s critical mineral upside, particularly with America pushing hard for its own domestic supply chain of critical minerals.
Dateline Resources’ managing director Stephen Baghdadi said: “Having multiple rigs on site has allowed us to accelerate the program so we can focus our efforts sooner on the new gold and rare earth targets. With over 1,400 samples already at the lab, we look forward to reporting the results as they become available and are analysed. Our geology team is eager to commence drilling the new gold and REE targets in early November.”
In a further bonus for the project economics, Dateline is also drilling a 1-million-tonne historical stockpile, which has yet to be included in the current mine plan. Historical records show an average grade of 1g/t gold for about 30,000 ounces. If confirmed, the stockpile could be fast-tracked into mill feed during commissioning, giving Colosseum a cash-flow head start.
Dateline has been on an absolute tear since April, rocketing from a basement low of 0.4 of a cent to a jaw-dropping 67.5 cents - representing an earth-shaking 16,500 per cent surge in its share price.
The spark for the meteoric rise came after a public endorsement from President Trump, who hailed the company’s Colosseum project as “America’s second rare earths mine”, resulting in Dateline’s market capitalisation exploding past the A$2 billion mark at one point.
Fuelling the market frenzy even further, Dateline cranked up its project economics in May by plugging in a beefed-up gold price of US$2900 an ounce - up from the original US$2200 used in its earlier scoping study.
The key price adjustment delivered a whopping 134 per cent jump in net present value for the project from US$235 million ($A355M) to US$550M (A$830M).
The company has forecast production of 635,000 ounces of gold over an initial 8.3-year mine life with annual production averaging 71,000 ounces grading 1.3 grams per tonne (g/t). The project has a blistering gold recovery rate of 92 per cent.
Operating costs are expected to be pegged at US$1182 (A$1818) per ounce, with all-in sustaining costs coming in at US$1490 (A$2292), which is well below Dateline’s revised gold price and paves the way for strong margins if the BFS holds firm.
The forecast payback for the project has also been reduced from 3.3 years to 1.6 years as the internal rate of return (IRR) before tax almost doubled from 31 per cent to a lustrous 61 per cent.
With gold prices now well north of US$4000 (A$6000) per ounce, it’s anyone’s guess as to what the final outcome may be.
With the rods about to turn on the project's most exciting targets yet, Dateline looks ready to add another layer of value to what’s already shaping up as one of the most strategically located gold and rare earths projects in North America.
Is your ASX-listed company doing something interesting? Contact: matt.birney@businessnews.com.au
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