Emmerson Resources Ltd (ASX:ERM) is making an early start to drilling high grade gold targets after the wet season in the Northern Territory with joint venture partner Evolution Mining Ltd (ASX:EVN).
Emmerson is fully funded by Evolution under the $15 million earn in to its tenement holdings in the Tennant Creek Mineral Field.
Emmerson is acting as manager during the stage 1 farm-in and is receiving a management fee during the period.
Drilling is underway at Edna Beryl west and Susan, plus a newly generated green fields project called Rhodes, which provide opportunities for near mine development.
Investors may recall that the first underground drill holes at Edna Beryl returned spectacular gold grades of 139.7g/t, 309.5g/t and 93.4g/t gold.
Drilling at Edna Beryl, where Emmerson has a small mines tribute agreement is aimed at testing for extensions of this "bonanza" gold grade mineralisation along the shear zone - both up plunge toward Edna Beryl and also at depth.
Emmerson managing director Rob Bills believes there is a large gap between the Edna Beryl Mine and Edna Beryl West, where the company will continue to infill drill (depending on results).
Mining underway at Edna Beryl
Small scale mining is underway at Edna Beryl, which was first announced in March 2016. Once in production Edna Beryl, although small scale will be one of the highest grade mines in Australia.
Emmerson is also looking at accelerating its “small scale mining” strategy given the positive gold price. It has commenced updating Mine Management Plans for Malbec, Chariot, Eldorado Deeps…with the intent of permitting them in parallel.
Drilling at Susan
While initial drilling at Susan will test immediately down plunge of some high grade historical drill holes including 11 metres at 19.51g/t gold intercept, one of 9 metres at 9.12g/t gold and 10 metres at 14.26g/t gold.
Notably, gold mineralisation potential exists below the historical Susan Mine and also some 350 metres deeper within the Susan syncline based on the geophysical magnetic model which suggests a deep source which remains untested.
Green fields project called Rhodes
The Rhodes target has not seen any previous drilling. It consists of testing a blind but subtle magnetic anomaly possibly representing a buried hematitic (with some residual magnetite) ironstone, above the Tennant Creek granite and within a major structural corridor.
New exploration license
A new exploration licence has been granted within the most fertile Warrego, White Devil, Orlando corridor. This ground is very much “under explored” and located where Emmerson have been keen to gain this for over 2 years.
Once a formal grant is issued the plan is to drill test a number of targets identified by Emmerson's in house predictive targeting model.
Rob Bills said: "Our Tennant Creek Project remains a key focus for Emmerson where we have a strategy of quickly adding to our resource inventory. This first drill campaign has very significant implications to extending high grade gold mineralisation at both Susan and Edna Beryl.
He said Emmerson was working across the three strategic horizons of: application of new technology/ideas to discover/extend high grade gold-copper mineralisation within our Tennant Creek Project and accelerating its small mines initiative which aims to monetise existing resources and provide underground drill platforms for near mine exploration.
The third part was in conjunction with Emmerson's strategic alliance partner Kenex Limited where the JV is applying innovative targeting methodologies to identify new gold-copper projects in Australia. This has already borne fruit.
He said, "This initiative is all about increasing the success of discovery through using “big data” to pinpoint high quality epithermal gold-silver, porphyry copper-gold and iron oxide copper-gold projects."
New South Wales tenements
Emmerson has been notified of the successful application of three large ground positions in New South Wales over epithermal gold and porphyry copper-gold targets.
These have been generated with strategic alliance partner Kenex, using multiple data sets that have a high correlation to the known mineralisation. This process is aimed at using best science and big data to increase discovery.
In all, 2016 is shaping up as a pivotal year of opportunity for Emmerson with significant high impact exploration programs and small scale mining initiatives and cash flow generation - adding to a deep pipeline of news flow.
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