Si6 Metals has completed the purchase of its Monument gold project west of Laverton in Western Australia. The company sealed the deal by exercising its option over the project and making a final payment of just $400,000 in cash and shares to the previous owner of the project, the Tim Goyder-backed explorer, DiscoverEx.
The completion of the purchase of Monument delivers Si6 100 per cent ownership of the high-grade gold tenure, which sits within WA’s fertile North-Eastern Goldfields just 44km west of Laverton in WA. Monument’s 310 square kilometres of tenure overlies the northern extensions of the revered Laverton Tectonic Zone, which hosts a wealth of gold mining operations and boasts an endowment of more than 30 million ounces of gold.
Interestingly, the Monument project is located along the same structure which hosts the nearby 2.1-million-ounce Mt Morgans operation that sits just 20km to the south. Si6’s early exploration across the tenure identified a quiver of targets along the A1-Perseverance structure including the Korong deposit together with the Waihi, Perseverance and Fred’s Well prospects.
The company’s subsequent exploration and development program across the Monument tenure has quickly resulted in the delineation of a substantial resource position along the A1-Perseverance shear which resulted in the tabling of open pit resources for both the Korong and Waihi deposits.
Korong’s maiden resource stole the show, tipping the scales at 3 million tonnes grading at 1.4 grams per tonne gold whilst Waihi came in at 200,000 tonnes at 2.1 g/t gold. The combined resource currently contains over 150,000 ounces of gold and the company is quick to add that they remain open along strike and at depth and have ample room to grow.
Si6 Metals Executive Chairman Patrick Holywell said:“We now have a resource of circa 154koz which sets a solid foundation. We will continue to focus on finding resources that support a longer term and potentially larger scale mining operation. We will continue to focus on brownfield exploration where we can grow existing resources, but we are also excited with other greenfield targets outside of the BIF horizon. One of these greenfield targets will be tested in September with an air core program over a number of high priority syenite intrusive targets.”
The company’s ongoing exploration program will now focus on building a pipeline of targets within the Monument tenure. First cab off the rank will be infill and extensional drilling over the Korong and Waihi deposits aimed at expanding the resource positions together with drill testing of a rash of targets along strike.
Si6 has also recognised a number of potential syenitic porphyry targets within its tenure, similar to Lefroy’s Burns copper-gold discovery east of Kambalda and has begun preliminary work to assess the prospectivity of these intrusive anomalies.
With the company’s Monument gold project now secured and more than $4 million in the tin, Si6 looks well placed to ramp up its drilling program in WA’s Goldfields and given the brace of hungry gold plants around Laverton, the company may even get a tap on the shoulder with an offer of toll treating which would bring it some welcome early cash flows.
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