Pacgold drills first holes into QLD gold-antimony play

Pacgold Limited has fired up the rigs at its St George gold-antimony project in north Queensland, with a maiden reverse circulation program now hammering into the historic mine. Just a few days ago the company dropped eye-watering surface rock chips up to 52.7 per cent antimony and 10.2 grams per tonne (g/t) gold.

The crisp nine-hole 900m program is the first ever by the company across its sprawling 905-square-kilometre St George package, aiming to test the depth and continuity of the outcropping ultra high-grade gold-antimony veins already mapped along the old workings.

The priority drilling campaign will focus in on the project’s St George prospect in the north, while its stand-out Fence and Ridgeline prospects – which recently threw up staggering surface rock chip results - are queued up for drilling early next year.

From first rock chips to rig on the ground in under six weeks is the kind of speed that gets the market’s attention in Queensland’s white hot junior exploration space.

The company says drilling is slated to finish within the next two weeks, with assay results expected inside six weeks, placing the first ever litmus test assays squarely in front of the market before year-end.

Recent rock chip sampling has confirmed the presence of extremely high-grade gold-antimony zones, and this first-pass RC program is designed to test the potential of the first of these three exciting targets with many more to come as exploration activity increases. St George is emerging as a compelling new opportunity within our portfolio, and we look forward to updating shareholders as results begin to flow.

St George lies in Queensland’s far North, deep in the Hodgkinson Province, the same belt that produced the thundering Palmer River and Hodgkinson gold rushes of the late 1800s and early 1900s.

Pacgold say the corridor lays claim to some of the thickest and richest antimony-bearing quartz veins in the state, with the mineralised structures bearing strong resemblance to the nearby Tregoora and Northcote deposits that Republic Gold mined in the 1980s for more than 550,000 ounces.

The latest drilling adds a third active front to Pacgold’s precious and critical metals attack.

Resource expansion drilling at its 854,000-ounce Alice River gold project recently wrapped up, swiftly followed by the fresh high-grade gold-antimony campaign now underway at St George.

The company’s flagship White Dam heap-leach operation in South Australia is also actively whirring away, on track for first gold cashflows by as soon as February next year.

The fully operational mine is located just 80kms southwest of Broken Hill and remains a highly prospective gold system with the real kicker being the existing gold still sitting in its heap leach pad.

At just 900 metres, the maiden program at its St George project is cheap, fast and deliberately high impact. One decent repeat of those surface grades at depth – in a province famous for stacking antimony and gold together - and the play will jump straight from prospect to exploration priority. The countdown to first assays is now on.

Is your ASX-listed company doing something interesting? Contact: matt.birney@wanews.com.au