Essex Minerals Inc (CVE:ESX) (FRA:EWX1) is poised to start drilling at its Mt Turner gold project in Queensland, Australia and has secured a rig for late July or possibly earlier.
Completed will be an initial six-hole, 800 metres (m) program to test the width and plunge of the down-dip extension of the gold and silver bearing shoots mined in the open pits.
Mt Turner lies 15 kilometres (km) northwest of the Georgetown and now spans a total area of 96 square kilometres (sq km). The property contains the 19km long Drummer Fault, the eastern 14km of which is home to several open pits, which were mined for gold by Union Mining to a depth of 20m in oxide material in the early 1990s.
READ: Essex Minerals agrees to acquire its Australian joint venture partner KNX Resources in an all-stock deal
Also in the statement, Essex said that, while access roads are prepared, the company was undertaking trenching and channel sampling along structure from the open pits.
In parallel, a soil sampling program over the nearby Mt Turner porphyry copper-molybdenum target will be carried out to better define drill targets, it added.
"After a long wet season, we are pleased our field crew is back on the ground in north Queensland and that a rig has been secured to initiate drilling this potentially large near surface gold target," Essex Minerals CEO Paul Loudon told investors.
"We look forward to an exciting few months ahead of us as we report results from the Mt Turner drilling, plan additional exploration programs on the company's Cumberland and Compass Creek Australian gold projects, and investigate additional option and earn-in joint venture opportunities for the company."
Essex also noted that it had now received 100% acceptances from the shareholders of KNX (which previously held 50% of Mt Turner) for its offer to acquire all the issued and outstanding shares in KNX in exchange for 5 million Essex shares, which will result in Essex owning 100% of the Mt Turner project, 83% of the Cumberland and Compass Creek gold projects.
Essex also updated on its previously reported plans to spin out a new streaming and royalty company focused on renewable energy and battery materials, saying its shareholders had approved a special dividend of shares in its new subsidiary Optegra Capital Corp (Optegra).
Contact the author at giles@proactiveinvestors.com