Troy Resources has delivered more impressive high-grade gold hits as it looks to grow the ounces beneath its operating Smarts open pit gold mine in Guyana, South America. One recent 3 metre drill intercept graded 17.35 grams per tonne gold from 176 metres and the company managed to grow its gold production for the March by a whopping 75 per cent from 4,195 ounces in the December quarter to 7,333 ounces.
The recent drill campaign, which consisted of four holes for a total of 1,069m, will assist the company to table a maiden ore reserve for the Smarts Underground project. Multiple broad and high-grade intersections were returned in all four holes.
A further two intervals within the same hole included 5m at 14.14 g/t gold from 232m and 3m at 9.92 g/t gold from 240m depth.
In a separate hole, the drilling hit four eye-catching intercepts of 5m at 12.60 g/t gold from 95m, 7m at 6.44 g/t from 112m, 20m at 3.68 g/t gold from 212m and 4m at 9.9 g/t gold from 318.5m.
The drilling has demonstrated the continuation of gold mineralisation between the Smarts 3 operational pit and the Smarts Underground, according to management. The results increase confidence of the resource and Troy is expected to release to market and upgraded mineral resource and an inaugural ore reserve estimate for Smarts Underground sometime soon.
The maiden ore reserve estimate will be eagerly anticipated as Troy looks to add ounces to the ongoing mining operations in Guyana.
Troy managed to sell 8,310 ounces of gold during the quarter generating total sales revenues of US$14.8 million for the company.
It also commenced and completed trial mining of the Goldstar deposit between March and April. Ore mined from the trial operation has been stockpiled for separate processing next quarter.
The stockpiles of crushed ore from Troy’s entire mining operation at the end of March totalled 6,863 tonnes with an average grade of 1.38 g/t gold, equating to 305 ounces of the precious yellow metal that is locked and loaded and ready to be processed.
The company also conducted further exploration works across the Karouni project tenure, including infill reverse circulation drilling at Goldstar, brownfields reverse circulation drilling at the Gem Creek prospect and greenfields drilling at the Mirror Central prospect.
Diamond drilling was also undertaken at the Hicks 1 deep extension and Gem Creek, with other greenfields work conducted at the Potaro-Kuribrong and Mirror SE prospects in the southern parts of the tenure.
At Goldstar, 53 holes for a total of 3,087mwere drilled reducing the line spacing to 15 metres. Nearly all the holes returned anomalous gold with a best intercept of 15m grading 1.30 g/t gold from just 11m down-hole.
At Gem Creek, 50 reverse circulation holes for 4,467 metres and 4 diamond drill holes for 904 metres were completed. Numerous significant gold hits were reported including 11m grading 1.90 g/t gold from 80m, with 6m at 7.30 g/t gold from 102m in the same hole.
In a separate hole at Gem Creek, a broad 75 metre interval was encountered grading 0.63 g/t gold from 105m, with a richer interval in the same hole returning 1.5m at 4.93 g/t gold from 133m depth.
Troy also appears to have added further highly prospective ground to its suite of prospects at Karouni via three new deals with local Guyanese vendors. The new tenements cover some 10 kilometres of strike over the projected Makaba-Kuribrong shear zone where past sampling returned up to 2.87 g/t gold.
The company reported cash of $6.2 million and gold inventories with a market value of $3.1 million at the end of the March quarter.
With Troy delivering high-grade gold hits as it looks to increase the mine life at Karouni, all eyes will be firmly focused on the Perth-based miner in anticipation of the maiden ore reserve estimate for Smarts Underground that is due to hit the market soon.
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By Matt Birney
