Tyranna Resources has appointed mining consultant firm Entech in the latest step towards its goal of achieving near-term cash flow from its 100%-owned Eureka gold project 50km north of Kalgoorlie.
Entech has been tasked with completing a mining and economic evaluation at Eureka, which is looking much stronger after encouraging hits from a just-completed drill program in and around the historic pit workings.
Recent drilling returned a top result of five metres grading 25.6 grams per tonne gold from 33m down-hole, including an eye-popping 89.7 g/t from 34m.
Earlier this month, Tyranna published an estimated mineral resource of 762,000 tonnes grading 1.8 g/t for 43,100 ounces of contained gold based purely on exploration in the immediate pit area.
Entech will evaluate the most effective path to production via processing at one of the many mills in the region. The short haul distances and proven high recoveries of Eureka ore are expected to be big positives in the assessment.
Tyranna Managing Director Bruno Seneque said Eureka was at the front of the queue of company projects because of its potential to generate early cashflow.
“The ability to become a cash-generating asset is vitally significant for a small cap gold exploration company like ourselves. Shareholders will appreciate the company will have the opportunity to generate free positive cashflow from Eureka at a time of record Australian gold prices, allowing us the self-fund an aggressive exploration program,” he added.
The company is also turning its attention to the next phase of exploration at Eureka, which is likely to focus on a southerly extension of the Eureka workings, where there has been no previous drilling. Drilling is expected to start in the second half of 2019 once permits are in place.
Eureka is an old open cut that was operated on a small scale many years ago. Previous mining only exploited near-surface ore without proper evaluation of the underground potential.
Tyranna is also planning to start drilling in the second half of 2019 at its recently acquired Goodsprings cobalt and base metal project, 48km southwest of Las Vegas, Nevada.
A recent geophysical survey identified a number of chargeable zones at depths of between 50m and 300m that could reflect mineralisation. Some of these zones also have surface geochemical anomalies and are considered high-priority targets.
By Matt Birney
