Joint venture partners Venus Metals and Rox Resources are continuing to be impressed by their Midway discovery at the duo’s Youanmi gold project with the most recent assays from the current drill campaign reporting new thick high-grade gold intercepts.
Headline figures include 6.76m at 15.4 grams per tonne gold from 169.1m and 3.73m at 10.25 g/t gold from 405.8m.
The results come from a long and ongoing drill campaign that includes both resource and exploration drilling with both RC and diamond drilling rigs. So far, 4726 RC metres and 1708 diamond metres have been punched out from planned 16,000 metre RC and 7000 metre diamond drill programs scheduled to run until April.
The pair’s resource drilling is focused on upgrading the inferred resources to indicated resources at two high-priority areas – Link and Kathleen, both north-east of the main pit. The exploration drilling is focused at Midway, to the south-east of the main pit.
Venus and Rox joined forces to acquire the Youanmi gold mine from Oz Youanmi in April 2019, with Rox having the ability to raise its share in the JV from an initial 50 per cent to 70 per cent, which it has since achieved. Rox manages the project and it is one of several ventures the two companies share in the Youanmi shear zone.
Youanmi is about 480km north-east of Perth and lies in the central part of the Youanmi greenstone belt, within the Southern Cross province of the Archean Yilgarn Craton – sometimes called “Australia’s premier gold province”. Neighbouring mines include Agnew with its 2 million ounces, Golden Grove holding 1 million ounces and Kirkalock containing 1 million ounces.
Youanmi itself boasts historical production stretching from 1918 through to 1997, for a total of 667,000 ounces going 5.42 g/t gold from both open-pit and underground operations.
An intensive exploration campaign throughout 2021 and early 2022 by the new owners saw big jumps in Youanmi’s resources. Near-surface resource increased by 204,000 ounces to break through the esteemed one million ounces barrier.
Youanmi’s total resource currently stands a shade under 30 million tonnes, going 3.57 g/t for 3.2 million ounces contain gold – a big 93 per cent rise on the June 2021 figure. Youanmi is regarded as having significant upside potential, not least because its scoping study’s production target includes only 20 per cent of the project’s total mineral resource.
Moreover, the project remains open down dip and along strike and deposits like Midway are naturally encouraging the project owners to eye a resource upgrade.
Midway was discovered in 2021. Gold mineralisation is shear-zone hosted within highly altered tholeiitic and komatiitic basaltic rocks. The alteration assemblage consists of sericite, quartz, carbonate and biotite. Gold occurs in association with pyrite and lesser arsenopyrite.
Midway is a high-grade multi-lode system only 300m from the hanging-wall of the Youanmi main lode and management believes it presents an excellent near mine exploration target. Indeed, Rox management believes Midway’s results to date suggest it has the potential to provide higher-grade gold than the Youanmi main lode itself and to significantly contribute to the project’s gold resource. It believes the “exceptional” drilling results, coupled with the detailed structural information, will provide valuable information to expand the discovery.
The project’s schedule has a pre-feasibility study targeted for this year, a definitive feasibility study in 2024 before a final investment decision in 2025.
When production at Youanmi ceased in 1997, the prevailing gold price was around $450 an ounce. Today, it sits around $2677, representing a 510 per cent increase since 2000 and hitting levels sure to get Rox Resources and Venus Metals excited and turn their dreams into reality.
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By Matt Birney
