AuTECO Minerals Ltd (ASX:AUT, OTC:MNXMF) is trading higher on highlighting the potential presence of a district-scale mineralised system at the Pickle Crow Project in Canada with outcropping vein samples at the Metcalf prospect returning very high-grade results of 569 g/t, 35.5 g/t, 27.4 g/t and 9.0 g/t gold.
These samples originate on the Tarp Lake shear, from just six kilometres outside the current 2.23-million-ounce resource at Pickle Crow.
Near-mine drilling also yielded strong results, pointing to material growth potential for the existing resource. Assays of note include:
- 0.4 metres at 91.0 g/t gold from 149 metres;
- 0.4 metres at 32.2 g/t from 30.4 metres;
- 0.5 metres at 23.6 g/t from 784.3 metres;
- 1.5 metres at 20.2 g/t from 488 metres;
- 1.8 metres at 8.3 g/t from 50.7 metres;
- 2.2 metres at 5.5 g/t from 371 metres;
- 5.0 metres at 1.9 g/t from 294 metres; and
- 8.0 metres at 1.8 g/t from 245 metres.
Step-out drilling is in progress at the Tyson veins area, with results expected imminently, while more drilling is expected to being this quarter at Metcalf and other regional targets on the tenure.
Shares have been as much as 23% higher intraday to A$0.043.
Building toward resource update
“These results provide strong evidence to support our view that we have an entire mineral district, which includes the Pickle Crow deposit,” AuTECO Minerals CEO Darren Cooke said.
“We will drill these outstanding regional targets over coming months as part of our strategy to continue growing the inventory, with a resource update set for early 2023.
“AuTECO is fully funded to continue the exploration and growth campaign with two rigs planned to drill for the remainder of 2022.”
AuTECO held A$17.4 million in cash and receivable as of June 30 this year, positioning the company well to complete its current drilling program of 50,000 metres with a dual focus on both in-mine resource expansion at Pickle Crow and regional discovery.