QMines Ltd (ASX:QML)’s reverse circulation (RC) and diamond drilling program at its flagship Mt Chalmers Project, 17 kilometres northeast of Rockhampton, Queensland, has intersected multiple wide and high-grade copper, gold and zinc mineralisation outside the known resource.
The results confirm strong resource growth potential with an upgrade planned in the fourth quarter of 2021.
Investors have welcomed the news, pushing shares up as much as 28% to 48 cents.
“Exciting period”
QMines executive chairman Andrew Sparke said: “The results from the current drilling program are very exciting.
“They demonstrate that this deposit has strong grade and width and is growing rapidly which bodes well for shareholder value.
“The current drilling program continues to intersect new mineralisation outside the current resource.
“Mineralisation remains open in all directions, which gives us confidence that this deposit will continue to grow.
“With two drill rigs onsite, multiple assays in the labs and a resource update expected shortly, we expect this quarter to be a very exciting period for our shareholders.”
Results
QMines has completed a total of 35 holes for 3,498 metres comprising 14 diamond holes for 1,587 metres, seven RC holes for 602 metres and 14 RC pre-collars for 1,309 metres.
Several additional diamond tails have been completed and delivered to the ALS laboratory in Brisbane with assays pending.
QMines personnel are cutting core onsite daily with samples being despatched to ALS weekly.
Highlight intersections include:
60.8 metres at 2.59 g/t gold, 0.74% copper 11.1 g/t silver, 1.81% zinc and 0.71% lead from 6.2 metres, including 12.6 metres at 12.01 g/t gold, 0.79% copper, 43.0g/t silver, 8.42% zinc and 3.25% lead from 21.2 metres;
38.5 metres at 1.22 g/t gold, 0.76% copper and 2.3 g/t silver from 63 metres, including 10.5 metres at 1.30 g/t gold, 1.93% copper and 5.2 g/t silver from 91 metres;
16.0 metres at 0.57 g/t gold and 2.18% copper from 104 metres, including 7.2 metres at 1.11 g/t gold, 4.15% copper and 2 g/t silver from 111.6 metres; and
7.0 metres at 2.90 g/t gold, 0.1% copper, 119 g/t silver, 13.69% zinc and 3.29% lead from 107 metres.
Resource upgrade on schedule
All results are now digitised into the company’s drill hole database and have been sent to the resource geologist, including the earlier validation drill holes, for resource modelling.
QMines is on schedule to deliver a resource upgrade in the fourth quarter and, based on historical holes twinned and recent drill holes, is expecting to deliver a new resource in the measured, indicated and inferred JORC categories.
It has completed multiple RC pre-collars ready for diamond tails and has a number of new holes planned to continue to test relatively undrilled areas of interest outside the existing resource.
Further results will be reported as they come to hand.
Next steps
Going forward, the next steps for the company include:
➢ Ongoing drill results from the planned 30,000 metres drilling program, with two rigs currently in operation;
➢ Downhole EM on several holes already drilled and prepared for survey tools with results to be released upon completion;
➢ Expanded soil testing utilising Niton Portable PAS XRF delivering real-time soil geochemical data for future drill targeting;
➢ Planned 1,800-line kilometre Heli-EM survey expected to commence in the first half of 2022 to identify further drill targets; and
➢ Resource upgrade planned to be released to market in the fourth quarter of 2021.