Siren reveals wider gold system at flagship NZ project

Siren Gold is chasing down a 7km long dyke at its Sam’s Creek gold project in New Zealand that appears to be harbouring multiple gold deposits. 

The company has landed a fresh 19-metre hit at 1.3 grams per tonne (g/t) gold, 500m west of the Main Zone resource, which currently contains 824,000 ounces. 

The new hit from the Doyles fold area includes a 9m section grading a solid 1.86g/t gold. 

Notably, Doyles sits beyond the current mineral resource envelope and appears to back management’s view that Sams Creek is not just a one-fold story. A second hole drilled 75m to the northwest also clipped 20m at 0.51g/t gold, which is enough to suggest the structure is holding together exactly where Siren hoped it would.

Earlier deep drilling had already proved the fold was alive well down plunge, with mineralisation tracked 700m below surface and 1.5km from the mapped outcrop. The latest pair of holes now brings that story much closer to surface and gives the company a tidier structural handle on where the next fences of drilling should go.

Siren Gold chief executive officer Zane Padman said: "Sams Creek continues to demonstrate its potential to evolve into a large-scale, high-grade gold system. With close to one million ounces already defined at the Main Zone, our recent success at Doyles confirms that similar mineralised folds occur across the broader 7km strike of the Sams Creek Dyke, providing a clear pathway for future resource growth".

Even though Siren says 90 per cent of drilling to date has been focused on the Main Zone, the broader setup is hard to ignore. The Sams Creek dyke has already been traced for 7km, ranges from 10m to 60m in thickness, and extends at least 1km down-dip. The current JORC resource stands at 824,400 ounces at an impressive 2.82 grams per tonne gold.

That leaves a line-up of undercooked targets still sitting on the bench. Riordan’s, Western Outcrops, Anvil and Barrons Flat have all been flagged by the company as high-priority folds capable of adding to the existing inventory. 

Meanwhile, the current infill campaign at its SE Traverse and Carapace prospects is aimed at lifting those areas into the indicated category ahead of an updated resource estimate. Management says 15 holes of infill drilling are complete, which puts that job roughly halfway down the road.

There is already enough historical grade across the system to keep the market interested. Main Zone intercepts previously include 37m at 3.26g/t gold, 25.8m at 4.41g/t and 46m at 2.13g/t. 

Away from Main Zone, Carapace has coughed up 9.48m at 9.5g/t and 5.2m at 10.63g/t, while SE Traverse has delivered 12.6m at 5.53g/t and 7.5m at 3.84g/t. Those sorts of numbers explain why the company is not treating Doyles as an isolated curiosity.

Siren is also inching Sams Creek further along the development track. The mining permit application remains under regulatory review and the company is still targeting an updated mineral resource estimate and a scoping study in the September quarter. 

Earlier technical work cited by Siren hinted at flotation and leaching recoveries of about 90 per cent at a throughput of up to 1.25 million tonnes per annum.

A couple of paragraphs wider and the rest of the portfolio starts to add some useful shape. At Queen Charlotte in Marlborough, Siren has already outlined gold and antimony mineralisation across a 12km shear zone. January surface sampling returned channel results such as 6m at 2.9g/t gold and 1.0 per cent antimony and rock chips running up to 4.6g/t gold and 26.2 per cent antimony. Although it's still early-stage work, these numbers have given the company a second iron in the fire in a commodity mix that has suddenly become fashionable.

Siren’s Langdons gold and antimony project, 50km southwest of Reefton, is no slouch either. September fieldwork returned channel sampling up to 38.5g/t gold and 5.7 per cent antimony, with float samples running as high as 506g/t gold and 21 per cent antimony. 

If Sams Creek is the development story, Queen Charlotte and Langdons look more like the sort of exploration sidecars that can keep the news flow humming while the main asset heads towards a more serious mining conversation.

Sams Creek sits about 25km south of Takaka in Golden Bay at the top of New Zealand’s South Island and remains one of the more substantial undeveloped gold positions in the country. 

With Doyles now ringing the bell west of Main Zone and only a thin slice of the 7km dyke properly drill tested, the next resource update may say more about the scale of the opportunity than the current 824,400-ounce headline does.

Is your ASX-listed company doing something interesting? Contact: matt.birney@businessnews.com.au