ASX-listed explorer, Victory Mines has hit the ground running in 2021 kicking off a second significant RC drilling campaign at its joint-ventured Coogee gold project about 55 kilometres south-east of Kalgoorlie to follow up on a string of high-grade gold hits last year.
The Perth-based company says the 40-hole RC program for an aggregate 6,000 metres is designed to test three key targets including the potential down-plunge and along-strike extension of the high‐grade shoot that coughed up a bonanza gold assay of 12m grading 12.01 grams per tonne gold from 93m including 3m at 35.87 g/t south of the historic Coogee open pit.
The other two targets are down-dip and along-strike extensions of gold mineralisation intersected 350m north of the Coogee pit, where recent drilling returned 20m going 2.22 g/t from 92m including 12m at 3.31 g/t, and down-dip extensions of mineralisation below the shallow 50m-60m Coogee pit.
Depths of most of the holes in the current round of follow-up drilling at Coogee are planned to range between 100m and 250m.
Victory completed its maiden RC drilling program totalling approximately 4,000m at Coogee in November 2020, comprising 35 holes aimed at teasing out high-grade extensions of the mineralised lodes outside the old open-cut mine environs and below the pit.
According to the company, the high-grade shoot plunges more than 100m in a southward direction beyond the southern end of the Coogee pit.
Coogee has returned high-grade drill hits previously. Past drilling, some of which was done by Victory’s current Coogee joint venture partner, WA gold producer Ramelius Resources, turned up bonanza gold intercepts from several shoots within the 600m Coogee pit corridor.
Stand-out historical intersections from that drilling work included 2m going 28.7 g/t gold from 63m, 3m at 21.03 g/t from 104m, 6m at 16.80 g/t from 36m, 2m at 14.9 g/t from 74m, and 5m at 11.13 g/t from 82m.
More than eight years ago, Ramelius delivered an indicated and inferred mineral resource estimate for the Coogee deposit of 224,000 tonnes at an average grade of 4.1 g/t gold, from which it defined ore reserves of 109,000 tonnes at 5.1 g/t for 18,000 ounces of contained gold.
The company subsequently undertook open-cut mining operations at Coogee from August 2013 to February 2014, with 35 per cent more tonnes extracted than the ore reserves estimate.
Coogee ore was treated at Ramelius’ former Burbanks gold processing plant, 8km south of Coolgardie and 112km from the project area.
It produced approximately 20,400 ounces from the 152,800 dry tonnes of Coogee open-pit ore that was milled at an average plant head grade of 4.7 g/t gold and a metallurgical recovery of 96.4 per cent.
Ramelius released a remnant inferred and indicated mineral resource for Coogee of 96,000t at 3.4 g/t for 10,600oz of contained gold in September 2019 before Victory became involved in August last year.
Under the terms of the JV with Ramelius, Victory is required to plough $2.1 million into exploration at Coogee over three stages to earn an 80 per cent interest in the project.
Coogee lies on the north-eastern shore of Lake Lefroy and the deposit is surrounded by other gold producers such as Northern Star Resources, Gold Fields and Silver Lake Resources.
Victory’s first drilling foray certainly provided it with plenty of impetus to plunge into the major follow-up campaign.
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By Matt Birney
