Javelin Minerals has taken the final hurdle ahead of the company’s maiden 3000-metre reverse circulation drill program at its Eureka gold project, 50 kilometres north of Kalgoorlie in Western Australia, in an area peppered with high-grade historical drill hits.
The company has completed a heritage survey achieved with the cooperation of the traditional landowners, the Marlinyu Ghoorlie group, of Javelin’s fully granted mining lease over the deposit.
Javelin has also recently secured a rig with TopDrill under a savvy drill-for-equity arrangement and is poised to begin work imminently to target extensions of high-grade lodes and a series of untested anomalies around the existing high-grade pit.
The company is moving quickly to explore beneath and beyond its recently acquired Eureka pit, focusing on established high-grade zones and 12 structural and geochemical targets to the north and northwest. Many targets lie along strike from the current 112,000-ounce resource.
Javelin Minerals executive chairman Brett Mitchell said: “There has been little or no modern exploration at Eureka and we believe there is immense upside to be unlocked by applying modern exploration techniques and the latest technology. We have already outlined a host of targets and we are very excited about our first drilling program following completion of the heritage survey.”
Eureka’s JORC resource stands at 2.45 million tonnes grading 1.42 grams per tonne (g/t) gold, including 62,000 ounces in the indicated category and 50,000 ounces inferred.
Historical drilling outside the resource returned notable high-grade results, such as 4 metres at 134g/t gold, 3m at 48.75g/, and 4m at 32g/t, all from within 60m of surface.
Javelin says its drill program will first target the high-grade lodes below the pit, which remain open at depth and along strike based on past work. The rig will then shift north to test a set of priority targets identified by Core Geophysics’s review of historical magnetics and geochemistry data.
With 750m of mineralised strike still largely unexplored, Javelin is optimistic about the potential to quickly grow its resource base.
Management has also outlined plans to mine some 30,000 to 34,000 recoverable ounces of gold from the indicated resource at the southern end of the Eureka pit. With gold prices pushing above an unbelievable $5000 per ounce, the company believes its gold ounces should prove lucrative.
Production could begin within 12 months with the support of WA’s fast-track approvals process for granted mining leases.
Javelin is in talks with nearby mills to toll treat the Eureka ore, which would offer a practical approach to generate cash flow without a major capital outlay.
Recent pit shell optimisations, based on a $4000 to $4200 per ounce gold price, underline the viability of the project’s southern portion, which is part of the broader 62,000-ounce indicated resource.
Eureka’s location adds to its appeal. It is in the Norseman-Wiluna greenstone belt, 20km north-northwest of Zijin Mining’s 4M-ounce Paddington gold mine and close to the 530,000-ounce Zoroastrian deposit. The project has a rich history having produced more than 37,000 ounces since the 1890s through underground and open pit mining, with grades reaching 4.5g/t in the 1980s.
Javelin’s Coogee gold-copper project,100km south near Kambalda, also remains a core focus after the company jagged a strong 5m intercept at 14.22g/t gold a little over a month ago.
With a rig in place and targets defined, Javelin is balancing exploration and development. Investors will no doubt be keen to see if Eureka can expand along strike as drilling gets underway in a true gold bull market.
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By Andrew Todd
