Meeka Metals Ltd (ASX:MEK) is celebrating today after growing its cornerstone Murchison gold resource to more than 1.2 million ounces.
The global gold resource is now reported at 12.7 million tonnes of ore — grading at 3 g/t for 1,215,000 ounces — thanks to a maiden 25,000-ounce open-pit resource at Meeka’s St Anne’s deposit.
Excitingly, all of the gold in the conservative St Anne’s resource sits in the higher-confidence indicated category, meaning it can go straight into a pre-feasibility study slated for release in the June quarter.
Meeka continues to drill the Murchison Gold Project, targeting the 25-kilometre Fairway shear zone in the hopes of turning up more high-grade material. The explorer expects to announce first assays this month.
“Conservative and valuable addition” to Murchison resource
Commenting on the initial St Anne’s mineral resource, Meeka managing director Tim Davidson said: “Over the 6 months to December 2022, drilling identified shallow, high-grade oxide gold at St Anne’s and we quickly moved to determine a high-confidence indicated mineral resource.
“This decision was strategic, given we knew shallow, high-grade oxide material would be a valuable addition to our upcoming pre-feasibility study.
“The open pit optimisation constraining the mineral resource reflects current mining costs and provides immediate input into our pre-feasibility study.
“This approach ensures a conservative and valuable addition to our mineral resource is reported for St Anne’s.
“St Anne’s remains open to the south and at depth, and it is likely that with further drilling an underground mineral resource will be reported.”
Plan view showing the initial St Anne’s open-pit resource, measuring 270,000 tonnes at 2.8g/t gold for 25,000 ounces.