ECR Minerals PLC (AIM:ECR) announced “exceptionally” high gold grades after it retested selected core samples from a 2021 drilling programme at its Creswick gold project in central Victoria, Australia, lifting the company’s shares up 25%.
As per standard industry practice, original drill cores were cut in half with one half sent for analysis and the remaining half (known as duplicates) preserved for future reference.
The best result from testing the selected duplicates was from hole CSD001. Original results from a 0.7metre (m) sample was 0.1 grammes a tonne (g/t) gold, while the duplicate returned a grade of 47.75 g/t gold.
Results from the duplicate samples revealed the high variability of coarse gold present at Creswick and explained why the initial sampling did not reveal the higher grades.
Other highlights from the duplicate testing included hole CJD002, which returned 1.1m at 6.13 g/t gold from a depth of 98m (originally assayed at 0.15 g/t) and 1m at 3.9 g/t gold from 86.5m.
“On behalf of the board, we are delighted that a programme to retest the 2021 Creswick drill core has yielded these exceptionally good gold grades,” said chief executive Andrew Haythorpe.
“On my visit to the Creswick tenements with [technical director] Adam Jones earlier this year, I saw the potential on the ground for myself, and it was this that convinced me that our plan to retest the Creswick core samples was well justified.”
Shares in the AIM-traded company were up 25% at 0.88p in early morning trading.