ASX-listed Middle Island Resources has taken another stride in its push to resume mining at Sandstone by identifying new targets at the southern end of its landholdings near the iconic mining town in the Murchison region of WA.
The WA junior said this week that the new gold targets were identified close to five known deposits in recent drilling at the southern end of its 100% owned Sandstone gold project, located about 400km northwest of Kalgoorlie.
The company added that the results from geochemical aircore drilling on several Weights of Evidence, or “WoE”, targets revealed several significant new blind gold anomalies defined beneath a blanket of transported sheetwash cover, with further 18 WoE targets still to be evaluated.
Three cohesive gold anomalies, with peak values up to 0.34g/t gold, were outlined over individual strike lengths of around 160m, some of which remain open beyond the area drilled.
Each of the anomalies was consistent with nearby high-grade open pit mined deposits and were all within 2.5km of the company’s 600,000 tonnes per annum, or “tpa”, Sandstone gold processing plant.
The company suggested that the area could host the highest clustering density of gold deposits within the entire Sandstone greenstone belt.
Middle Island managing director Rick Yeates commented: “The receipt of further encouraging exploration results from the recently completed aircore geochemical drilling is extremely pleasing.”
“All gold anomalies associated with these WoE targets lie on permitted mining leases and within 2.5km of the company’s 600,000 tpa Sandstone gold processing plant, enhancing the potential to contribute to a mill recommissioning decision.”
“Following initial exploration success at Davis, the latest (assay) results also serve to further confirm the validity of the WoE study, with a further 18 targets, many of which are higher priority, yet to be tested.”
Middle Island Resources is currently on a drive to build an ore base to support a resumption of mining at Sandstone and the recommissioning of its treatment plant. It previously said it envisaged employing about 160 workers at Sandstone in two shifts if its plans were successful.
The identification of new targets come after Middle Island earlier this month formally set out a takeover offer for fellow ASX-listed listed gold company Alto Metals, proposing an all-scrip of-market consideration of five of its ordinary shares for every Alto ordinary share.
Alto’s principal asset is its own Sandstone gold project covering around 80 per cent of the 800 square kilometre Sandstone greenstone belt and lies adjacent to Middle Island’s landholdings.
The current mineral resource estimate for Middle Island’s Sandstone gold project is 12.7 million tonnes grading 1.38g/t gold for 537,000 ounces.
A combined entity would control a large swathe of the prospective belt and potentially incorporate several stranded gold resources within a 100 km radius of Middle Island’s process plant.
Alto Metals’ board is still yet to make a formal recommendation to shareholders regarding the takeover offer from Middle Island.
By Matt Birney
