ASX-listed Strickland Metals now has its hands firmly on strategic ground-holdings abutting its flagship Horse Well gold project in WA after squaring away a deal that increases its footprint in the tier-one Yandal gold belt in the state’s north-eastern Goldfields. The gold and copper explorer has just wrapped up the transaction having entered into an agreement last month to buy a 75 per cent stake in the Yandal East tenements from junior explorer Renegade Exploration for a consideration of 40 million new Strickland shares and $800,000 cash.
Yandal East spans a project area of about 320 square kilometres and sits immediately to the south of Strickland’s 1,000sq.km Horse Well gold project tenure. It also lies about 30km east of Northern Star Resources’ 10-million-ounce-plus Jundee gold operation.
Strickland’s deal with Renegade comes on the heels of a recently announced $12 million capital raise that significantly boosts its exploration strike power.
Management says the Yandal East acquisition extends the prospective mineralised strike along the regional Celia shear zone that its exploration licences cover by 60km to more than 100km and further consolidates its landholdings position across the north-eastern flank of the Yandal-Millrose greenstone belt.
The Perth-based company’s Horse Well project takes in an inferred resource of 5.72 million tonnes grading an average 1.4 grams per tonne gold for 257,000 ounces of contained gold at the Dusk Til Dawn and Horse deposits, which also hug the shear zone.
Strickland recently agreed to fork out $10 million in staged payments to nail down the Millrose gold project that comes with an indicated and inferred resource estimated at 346,000 ounces of gold.
The planned $12 million share placement and non-renounceable rights issue will underpin the company’s purchase of the Millrose asset, perched adjacent to the former Renegade ground, from Millrose Gold Mines and Golden Eagle Mining.
The existing resource hosted within the 600sq.km Millrose project terrane expands Strickland’s global resource base – on a 100 per cent ownership basis – in the auriferous north-eastern Yandal-Millrose system to 603,000 ounces.
Millrose’s mineral resource, which is also located about 30km east of Northern Star’s Jundee operations, currently stands at 6Mt at an average grade of 1.8 g/t for the 346,000 ounces.
Strickland says the north-eastern portion of the Yandal belt is significantly under-explored.
Having bedded down the two strategic acquisitions, the company has now set its sights on a massive exploration undertaking testing a poultice of targets dotting the Celia shear over the next 18 months – including 100,000m of aircore drilling and 30,000m of reverse circulation drilling.
According to management, the company’s proposed drilling onslaught represents the “first time ever this part of the (Yandal) belt has been subject to substantial systematic exploration” despite the tier-one region’s gold endowment and regional geology.
Other sections of the Yandal greenstone belt have seen a strong cast of well-known WA gold mines including Jundee, Bronzewing and Darlot, which have all coughed up production totalling multi-million ounces.
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By Matt Birney
