WA explorer Meeka Metals has swelled the mineral resource at its Murchison gold project to 1.2 million ounces due to a 12 per cent increase at the company’s Turnberry deposit to 10.6 million tonnes going 2 g/t gold for 685,000 ounces.
The boost means the Murchison project now boasts a 12.4Mt resource going 3 g/t gold, most of which comes from the 1.7km strike length Turnberry deposit which remains open to the north, south and at depth.
Turnberry forms the centrepiece of Meeka’s plan to dust the cobwebs off the Murchison gold project which was put on ice in 2017 amid dwindling gold prices.
Meeka says Turnberry is a virgin site hosting a shallow, high-grade deposit which holds about 1600 ounces of gold per vertical metre down to a depth of 200m.
The company has for the past 18 months focused its drill bit on Turnberry’s core and its shallow oxide gold on the project’s western flank.
The work has seen more than 80,000m drilled at the project in order to establish a mineral resource including 16,213m between June 2021 and November 2022 that came after the previous resource update.
Meeka Metals Managing Director Tim Davidson said "planning is in place to further extend the strike of this shallow gold in 2023.”
“Extensional drilling also commenced on the eastern flank in December 2022 (assays pending) where an opportunity to further grow the shallow oxide gold at Turnberry was identified.”
“Shallow, high-grade oxide mineralisation added to the mineral resource through this drilling will continue to have a meaningful impact on the outcome of the upcoming prefeasibility study expected in June 2023.”
Mr Davidson said Meeka was running a fine comb over the project to reduce outlay in light of escalating costs in the mining industry.
This has led to a reduction in the open pit portion of the mineral resource by 330,000-ounce, although the company says this was mitigated by the optimisation of the shallow oxide gold on the western flank which brought it into the game.
With a Murchison prefeasibility study slated for June, Meeka Metals is putting the finishing touches on a mineral resource at the project’s St Anne’s deposit which it hopes to reveal in March.
Should Murchison succeed it would bring back to life a project which churned out a high-grade 330,000-ounce going 8 g/t gold near Meekatharra.
The one-time Australian mine of the year Andy Well underground mine and processing facilities were snapped up by Meeka Metals in 2021 and sit in close proximity to the Murchison project.
So too does Superior Gold’s world-class Plutonic gold mine which in September revealed it was still finding high-grade strikes at its 750m-underground operation.
Those strikes include a 27.3m intercept going 10.5 g/t gold and a 4.5m strike going 15.6 g/t gold.
Some six million tonnes of gold have been extracted from Plutonic over more than three decades of continuous operation and its recent hits suggest there is no slowing down any time soon.
The Murchison has long been feted for its gold-bearing potential but lives in the shadow of its headline-grabbing neighbour to the south in the Goldfields.
Centred around the historic gold towns of Cue, Meekatharra, Sandstone and Mt Magnet, a renaissance of sorts has occurred in recent years with explorers such as Musgrave Minerals, Ramelius Resources and Westgold Resources flocking to the region.
Westgold runs three underground mines near Meekatharra feeding the 1.8Mtpa Bluebird processing hub with an expectation to churn out 100,000 ounces of gold per year.
There has been plenty of whispers in the industry about the potential company-makers still lurking below the surface in the historic Murchison gold region.
Meeka Metals is amongst the pack doing their utmost to turn these whispers into roars.
Is your ASX-listed company doing something interesting? Contact: matt.birney@businessnews.com.au
By Matt Birney
