Troy Resources’ Smarts Underground deposit in South America continues to produce outstanding results with the company confirming three ounce-to-the-tonne, or better, gold hits at its Karouni gold project in Guyana. The ongoing reserve definition drill program returned a first hole intersection of 1m going 57.60 g/t gold from 221m where it is already sitting on a one million-ounce resource estimate.
Assay results from the additional, deep intersections in drill hole SDD188 were 3m at 10.30 g/t gold from 261m and a whopping 14m at 13.74 g/t gold from 273m. The deeper intercept included the two other highest-grade hits — 2m going 36.95 g/t gold from 273m, and 1m at 56.13 g/t from 284m downhole. The drilling also produced a 2m intersection going a solid 20.34 g/t.
The Ken Nilsson-led Troy said these initial assay results highlight the significant potential for the Smarts Underground deposit to add high-grade ounces to the mining inventory and extend the mine life at the Karouni project.
The company said assay results are pending for the second hole in the latest program and the drill rods are currently spinning in a third.
According to Troy, drilling success to date has seen the current program at Smarts Underground extended by a further nine holes to test strike extensions to the northwest, ahead of the release of a maiden reserve expected before the end of this year.
Whilst Karouni is sitting on a total mineral resource estimate of 1,007,000 ounces of gold from 16 million tonnes grading 2.0 g/t, it expects the project’s ore reserve position to increase materially when its Smarts Underground deposit reserve estimate hits the street.
The company said the current underground resource at Smarts sits at 3Mt at 3.0 g/t for 288k ounces of contained gold representing the largest single resource amongst its bevy of ten separate deposits at Karouni.
And even though the Smarts open pit is currently sitting idle with an existing ore reserve of 355,000 tonnes at 3.2 g/t for 36,500 ounces of gold, the company says the high-grade hits at Smarts Underground will likely cause a re-think on its future mine plans at Smarts.
The open-pit mine at Karouni has been producing gold since mining re-commenced at the beginning of this year, with ore being extracted primarily from the Hicks and Larken pits.
The company also has an RC rig spinning the drill rods at the Ohio Creek area to test for extensions to the known areas of mineralisation. Troy has recently completed a trial mining exercise at Ohio Creek which demonstrated some success with the grade holding up at close to 2 grams per tonne gold.
Interestingly, the trial mining at Ohio Creek unearthed a series of flat dipping, very high-grade quartz veins which Troy’s technical team is attempting to reconcile with the inferred mineral resource of 2.2Mt at 1.9 g/t for 133,200 ounces of contained gold.
Getting spectacular early hits from its latest drill campaign can only buoy Troy’s confidence as it settles into its gold mining operations and reserve definition activities against the background of close to all-time high gold prices.
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By Matt Birney
