ASX-listed Horizon Minerals has offloaded its “non-core” Nanadie Well copper project in the Murchison district of WA as it progresses a massive 70,000m aircore, RC and diamond drilling campaign at its flagship Boorara gold project near Kalgoorlie. Horizon is already producing gold near Kalgoorlie under a toll treatment arrangement and the company has a plethora of satellite projects that it hopes to bring into production around Kalgoorlie.
The Perth-based company this week finalised the sale of its 100 per cent interest in the Nanadie Well project about 75km south-east of Meekatharra to Cyprium Metals for a predominantly scrip-based transaction worth $1.5 million.
Horizon, formerly Intermin Resources and MacPhersons Resources, estimated a mineral resource for Nanadie Well of 151,500 tonnes of contained copper and 74,200 ounces of contain gold using an earlier, now superseded version of the JORC code.
It had flagged the Nanadie Well transaction a couple of months ago.
Meanwhile, Horizon has the drill bit firing again as part of its big resource definition program at Boorara near Kalgoorlie and its surrounding satellite deposits as it advances towards a definitive feasibility study into the merits of a proposed standalone gold mining and processing operation next year.
Horizon’s grab bag of deposits, all of which lie within a 75km radius of Kalgoorlie, host a latest stated combined mineral resource of 24.88 million tonnes grading an average 1.32 grams per tonne for 1.05 million ounces of contained gold.
Boorara, which sits about 10km east of Kalgoorlie’s famous Super Pit, accounts for 16.45 million tonnes of that resource grading 0.96 g/t for 507,000oz of contained gold.
In yet another sign of investors’ renewed love affair with emerging and junior gold stocks, Horizon had no trouble rattling the tin for more than $16 million recently in a heavily oversubscribed capital raise.
Proceeds from the share placement will be pumped into completing the large-scale, 70,000m drilling program focused on reserve conversion, resource growth and the testing a number of high-priority new discovery targets across the Boorara suite of deposits and prospects.
In addition to strengthening Horizon’s balance sheet and providing working capital, the funds will go towards preparing the DFS that the company has targeted for completion in the June 2021 quarter.
Horizon says it is also scouring the revered Kalgoorlie mineral province for regional consolidation opportunities to further beef up its Boorara gold portfolio within the 75km radius of the proposed standalone processing plant at the Boorara gold operations.
The DFS will look at the economics of an initial mine life of about 4-5 years, with the Boorara deposit at this stage set to provide about 70 per cent of the ore feed to the new treatment facility and higher-grade open-cut and underground satellite deposits within trucking distance to make up the rest.
Horizon is expecting the first batch of results from its current $7 million drill campaign in the December quarter.
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By Matt Birney
