Vital Metals (ASX:VML) has completed the second stage of its drill program at the 100% owned Elephant Creek gold project located in North Queensland.
A further 20 holes were drilled and assays are expected in the coming few weeks.
Drilling follows the first stage of 12 holes which yielded significant gold intercepts including 4 metres at 26.39 g/t gold from 17 metres.
Vital also drilled two holes at the Peninsula copper prospect, which has potential to be a high grade, low tonnage copper direct shipping ore target.
Mark Strizek, managing director, commented: “It is over 20 years since there has been any drilling for gold at Elephant Creek, the results from the first set of assays raised the bar versus the historical drilling and we are hopeful the second stage of drilling will produce similar results.”
Elephant Creek recent drill results
Results received in early November came from the Ivory vein within Elephant Creek and graded up to 26.39 g/t gold with highlights including:
- 8 metres at 13.43 g/t gold from 15 metres including 4 metres at 26.39 g/t gold;
- 6 metres at 2.23 g/t gold from 18 metres;
- 3 metres at 1.11 g/t gold from 20 metres;
- 8 metres at 3.37 g/t gold from 42 metres;
- 14 metres at 2.56 g/t gold from 28 metres;
- 5 metres at 1.05 g/t gold from 62 metres; and
- 12 metres at 1.1 g/t gold from 28 metres.
Gold mineralisation at Ivory remains open both at depth and along strike.
Peninsula Copper Project
The Peninsula copper prospect is located circa 10 kilometres from Elephant Creek and is believed to have potential as a high grade low tonnage copper direct shipping ore target.
Copper mineralisation at Peninsula is considered to be analogous to the Dianne mine located 80 kilometres away.
The mine was reported to have produced around 90,000 tonnes of direct ship ore for sale to Mitsui Smelters in Japan in the 1980s.
Analysis
The Queensland projects have proven to be an important second front to the highly prospective wholly owned Doulnia Gold Project in Burkina Faso.
Vital will remain leveraged to exploration based news flow in the short term with assays now pending from drilling at a target known to host significant gold mineralisation.
The recent high-grade gold assays from the initial round of drilling at Elephant Creek exceeded expectations.
Elephant Creek offers significant exploration upside, as Ivory is but one of 11 known gold-bearing vein systems that have been identified.
Furthermore, taking the opportunity to drill at Peninsula was a bonus for Vital and the results will help build the wider 2017 drilling campaign strategy.
Vital is up 35% year to date, currently trading at $0.018.