ASX-listed junior explorer, Okapi Resources expects to start a maiden drilling program at its historic Enmore gold project about 30km south-east of Armidale in NSW’s New England Fold Belt this week after securing a drill rig. The Perth-based company plans to drill an initial eight-to-10 reverse circulation holes totalling about 1,000m at the project’s brownfields Sunnyside and Bora prospects.
According to Okapi, the historic “under-explored” Enmore goldfield may overlie a geological setting broadly similar to that observed at Red River Resources’ Hillgrove antimony-gold mine, which recently recommenced production and sits about 50km north of Enmore.
Okapi Resources Executive Director, Dave Nour said: “We are very pleased to be able to secure a drill rig especially during this busy period. Preparation work for the drilling has already commenced and drilling is expected to commence immediately after the arrival of the drill rig this week.”
Sunnyside and Bora have previously coughed up a series of high-grade gold values from historic drilling and rock chip sampling undertaken by previous owners.
Some of the better historic drill intersections from the old Sunnyside mine area were 22m grading an average 2.66 grams per tonne gold from surface including 4m at 11.94 g/t from surface, 20m at 1.7 g/t from 18m including 4m at 4.4 g/t from 21m, and 2m at 14.6 g/t from 46m.
Other notable past assays from Sunnyside, which Okapi says is part of a 2.5km-long auriferous regional structure, were 8m at 3 g/t from surface and 10m at 2.8 g/t from surface including 2m at 6.2 g/t from 8m.
Previous owners drilled a combined 213 diamond, RC and percussion holes totalling 11,323m at several prospects between 1974 and 2016 across the Enmore project area.
Okapi says there was mostly shallow drilling and exploration work and only limited deeper drilling done historically at Sunnyside.
Its new program is designed to test the potential for depth extensions to shallow mineralisation encountered by the historic drilling at the priority prospects.
The company says the main prospects at Enmore have been identified by the presence of continuous lode-style mineralisation over strike lengths of up to 600m.
Melbourne-based Red River recently brought the Hillgrove mining and processing operation back on stream after more than two decades in the wilderness.
Hillgrove’s measured, indicated and inferred mineral resource currently stands at 5 million tonnes at an average grade of 4.3 g/t gold and 1.5 per cent antimony for 692,000 ounces of contained gold and 75,000 tonnes of contained antimony.
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