Neometals (ASX: NMT) has dusted off historical data to unveil a new Western Australian gold strategy at its Barrambie project that previously produced 27,000 ounces at 27.8 grams per tonne.
The region’s rich titanium and vanadium reserves has left the area's potential for gold largely unexamined. However, the company says recent rock-chip samples that threw up grades as high as 44g/t has prompted it to pivot back to the yellow metal, while its titanium and vanadium pursuits will now take a backseat.
The Barrambie Greenstone Belt (BGB) was an historically-significant gold-producing region, yielding multiple high-grade ounces of gold in the early 20th century. But, for years, gold has not been the priority.
Now, Neometals’ latest findings have reignited its interest in exploiting the precious metal, especially given its booming Australian price of $3854 per ounce today.
With a tenure spanning 706 square kilometres, the company controls some 40km of the BGB’s strike, much of which has remained under-explored for gold.
In what Neometals considers a maiden assessment, it reported high-grade assay results from recent grab and rock-chip samples, with values ranging between 5.1g/t and 44g/t of gold. Management says the results, corroborating historical grades, indicate camp-scale potential where multiple deposits across the belt could contribute to a much bigger, untapped gold resource.
After compiling and analysing historical data from more than 1500 drill holes, Neometals has delineated an exploration target for the BGB. The target ranges between 8 million tonnes at 1.3g/t of gold to 10.5Mt at 2.3g/t, translating to a potential of between 335,000 and 775,000 ounces. The company is, however, at pains to emphasise that the figures are conceptual, with more exploration required to establish a formal resource.
“The excellent work of our technical team in compiling, validating and analysing historic exploration data has proven we have underestimated the gold potential of perhaps the only remaining greenstone terrain in the Yilgarn, with no exploration effort in the past 20 years. It presents a rare opportunity to uncover a substantial gold camp and we will explore the most effective strategy and corporate structure to capitalise on the gold potential.” Neometals managing director Chris Reed
The Barrambie project’s geological setting makes it highly-prospective for gold, sitting within the northern Yilgarn Craton that hosts some of Australia’s most prolific gold belts, including Meekatharra-Mount Magnet and Sandstone. According to management, recent reprocessing of the geophysical data, coupled with a new structural interpretation, suggests that multiple mineralised corridors could exist, but have gone underexplored.
Using Barrambie as a potential gold camp, the plan is to discover and develop multiple deposits of varying sizes and is based on existing prospects such as the Barrambie Ranges and Ironclad, which have already yielded high-grade intersections. One hole at Ironclad reported 8m running at 21.78g/t of gold, while the Barrambie Ranges revealed 4m grading 6.06g/t from historical drilling.
With limited drilling and an inconsistent approach to surface geochemistry, BGB’s potential has been hampered and much of the historic drilling in the area has not gone below 60m, leaving deeper zones untouched. With a more methodical approach and using modern exploration technology, Neometals hopes to fill several significant gaps left by the historic datasets.
The company’s immediate plan includes twin-hole drilling to validate earlier hits, expanding surface geochemical sampling and drill-testing priority targets identified by the reprocessed geophysical data.
Neometals is gearing up to unlock the untapped gold potential of its Barrambie project, a region historically known for high-grade titanium. If successful, the strategic shift could establish a large-scale gold resource in an area long overlooked for its precious metal potential.
As the company digs deeper into the data and with gold prices within AU$10 of all-time highs, keen eyes are likely to laser-focus in on any updated news that proves up the company’s ambitious strategy. The next chapter of Barrambie’s story could well be written in gold.
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