ASX-listed Zuleika Gold is expanding its presence in the highly prospective Goongarrie district of the WA Goldfields, inking a farm-in agreement with fellow WA explorer Olympio Metals.
Under the agreement, Zuleika must spend $400,000 within three and a half years to earn up to 80 per cent of the tenement that is Olympio’s Canegrass prospect and part of its Goldfields project.
When that milestone is passed, an unincorporated JV will be established between the parties.
The tenement at the centre of the agreement is E29/1010 which covers 72 square kilometres of the northern section of the Wongi Hills Greenstone Belt, 50km along strike to the north of the historic mining centre of Siberia.
It is also adjacent and contiguous to a larger tenement, E29/1051, in which Zuleika has an 80 per cent interest in a separate JV agreement with another company, that Zuleika calls its Goongarrie project.
Adding E29/1010 to Goongarrie, about 90km north of Kalgoorlie, will boost its total project area by 45 per cent to a sizeable 230 square kilometres.
However, it’s not just size that impresses Zuleika – it’s the quality. The tenement overlies prospective greenstone and management says it is excited because gold and nickel anomalies have been defined by previous soil sampling.
As an indicator, the company points to the soil sampling undertaken by Rumble Resources between 2011 and 2015. Zuleika says a series of wide-spaced soil traverses targeting gold and nickel resulted in several strong anomalies of plus-10 parts per billion gold being identified.
Mapping and rock chip sampling also have been undertaken by several companies over the past three decades, however no drilling has been recorded in either of the two tenements.
That looks set to change very soon: Zuleika is flagging soil geochemistry likely to be followed by a drilling program next year.
Zuleika Gold Managing Director, Jonathan Lea said: “Adding 15km of strike length of a highly prospective greenstone belt increases the quality of the Company’s tenement holding. This is a fantastic addition to our Goongarrie project, and we look forward to getting on the ground in the near future to commence exploration activities.”
Besides Goongarrie, Zuleika holds interests in three other gold exploration projects in WA with the focus firmly on the Kalgoorlie area.
The company’s flagship Zuleika gold project, about 230 square kilometres of tenements on the world-class Zuleika Shear, has produced more than 20 million ounces of gold over the past three decades. The other two projects are Credo, north of Kalgoorlie, and Menzies – immediately west of the gold-producing town of the same name and itself a large tenement comprising more than 180 square kilometres.
In terms of tenement size, Zuleika is the third largest holder within the Zuleika Shear Zone behind Evolution Mining and Norton Goldfields.
Zuleika got the nod of approval at the beginning of this year from none other than Mark Creasy. The uber explorer-cum-mining mogul dropped a lazy $3 million into Zuleika at a 50 per cent premium, which sent the share price rocketing.
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By Matt Birney
