Dart Mining (ASX: DTM) has nabbed a 118,000-ounce gold project in Queensland for $1 million in cash and $1 million in shares, valuing the JORC resource at $17 per ounce as the company expands its exploration portfolio.
In what appears to be a transformational deal for Dart – which is also pursuing gold in Victoria’s historic Rushworth goldfield – it has received firm commitments from sophisticated investors for $1.8 million via a placement at 1.2c a share to fund the acquisition and has resolved to undertake a non-renounceable rights issue with shareholders for $1.3 million at the same price.
Through the purchase of two tenements with a combined coverage of 138 square kilometres from ASX-listed Sunshine Metals, Dart has picked up the Triumph gold project that is centred around the historic Norton Goldfield, 50km south of Gladstone. The funds raised will immediately be used to pay for the project, launch exploration activities and definition diamond drilling and for general working capital purposes.
Sitting 70km north-west of the 2.8 million-ounce Mt Rawdon mine and 80km south-east of the massive 8 million-ounce Mt Morgan mine, the immediate project area has a rich history, with gold first discovered there in 1871.
The leases cover a 15sq-km intrusion-related system and sit primarily within the Norton Tonalite. With geology characterised by gold and silver mineralisation hosted in quartz-sulphide veins, with substantial pyrite and arsenopyrite content, management believes the project has the potential to host both high-grade vein and large-scale, shear-hosted gold deposits.
To date, more than $8 million has been accumulatively spent on Triumph in conducting geochemical, geophysical and drilling campaigns, providing Dart with the luxury of focusing on infill drilling and updating the resource. The company will assume a further 44 holes for a total of 3695m in drilling, which are yet to be incorporated into the resource model, but will now be included in an updated resource once the project purchase transaction is completed.
The deal offers a highly-attractive entry point, well below discovery costs. With a gold-to-silver ratio of 1:2, the ore also holds significant silver content that has been excluded from the resource estimate and acquisition cost calculations.
It presents a strong opportunity for the project to achieve a lower-cost production profile.
The importance of acquiring a significant gold resource with considerable scope for growth cannot be underestimated. The acquisition will be Dart Mining’s first significant project outside Victoria and reflects our strategy to expand into advanced intrusion-related and epithermal gold projects in Queensland, whilst continuing to progress our prospective gold and porphyry projects in Victoria.
Dart Mining Chairman James Chirnside
Chirnside says the company will be able to add value to the project by using its own drill rigs and believes Queensland’s favourable prospectivity for million-ounce-plus gold deposits will provide an important strategic balance with its Victorian orogenic gold and porphyry projects. He is also adamant Triumph has room for significant growth through further drilling campaigns.
Dart intends to finalise its purchase in late October and will then update the resource estimate after collating the recent drill data, before kicking off a 10,000m drilling program. Tantalisingly, 85 per cent of the JORC estimate is within 100m of the surface and more than half of the 1.8km strike remains undrilled, giving the company plenty of opportunity to define a bigger intrusion-related gold system.
Initial plans are in place to use 7000m of drilling to step out to some obvious targets, especially the ones in magnetic lows that could quickly add to the southern corridor deposit resource.
In a wider area that has historically hosted 17 multi-million-ounce deposits, one of the more interesting observations is that almost all of them have been discovered at depth. Management has cited extensive research by renowned geologist, Dr Greg Morrison, as evidence of that and has decided to apply 3000m of diamond drilling under the existing deposit to test the theory and see what riches may lie beneath.
Dart is also continuing its work exploring and developing historical goldfields in north-east Victoria. With tenements covering almost 7000sq km, primarily in the Lachlan Fold Belt, and hosting a variety of metals including gold, copper, silver, molybdenum and lithium, the company has elected to focus more recently on its Rushworth gold project.
Systematic phase-one drilling at the site earlier in the year gave management a better understanding of the structural controls of the high-grade shoots that had been previously mined by prospectors – especially at a prospect known as Growlers Hill, where a 100m shaft had been built. Initial follow up phase-two drilling completed last month threw up 1.2m at 4.5 grams per tonne gold including 0.4m going 8.4g/t and 0.3m reading 6.6g/t gold. A further four holes are to be completed and results are due in the next month.
With a rapidly appreciating gold price – currently at an all-time high of US$2512 per ounce (AU$3721) – the timing of Dart’s deal appears to be spot on. And with a relatively small amount of additional work, the company could be on the cusp of a significantly-improved resource base.
Surrounded by compelling gold history on all sides of Triumph, Dart is set to burst through the old saloon bar door to get cracking on a mission aimed at mirroring its new acquisition’s name.
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