16 December 2024
MiningNews - Antipa discovers new gold zones at Minyari Dome
By Joshua Smith
Having recently bolstered the resources and refreshed a scoping study for its mainstay Minyari Dome project in Western Australia, explorer Antipa Minerals has confirmed three new zones of near-surface, high-grade gold mineralisation in the project area.
RC drilling across the southern part of the GEO-01 prospect has helped delineate the newly named Fiama, Minyari South and Minyari Southeast discoveries. Antipa still has assays outstanding for 37 holes out of its 72-hole program in the area, with 23 reported on Monday.
Headline hits include 17m at 6.8 grams per tonne gold and 0.5% copper from 65m downhole at Minyari South, including 4m at 12.2gpt and 1% copper, 16m at 3.8gpt and 0.09% copper from 113m at Fiama, including 2m at 25.4gpt gold and 0.21% copper, and 10m at 3gpt gold from Minyari Southeast, including 2m at 13.2gpt.
Managing director Roger Mason said the results from GEO-01 South, now called Diama, were "particularly exciting" given they reinforced the potential of the area and warranted "elevation in priority status".
Some of the holes targeted the GEO-01 North prospect, but the four assays returned so far have only shown low-grade mineralisation of up to 0.61gpt gold, 0.1% copper, 0.2% zinc and 0.17% lead in 1m intersections.
While not as promising as the other new targets, Antipa maintained that nine assays from GEO-01 North were still outstanding for the company to properly assess the area.
Minyari Dome has resources of 2.3 million ounces of gold, 84,000t of coper, 661,000oz of silver and 13,000t of cobalt.
According to its last resource update in September, nearly 70% of the resource is classified as indicated.
The GEO-01 area lies around 1.3km from the Minyari Dome deposit.
Antipa's October scoping study outlined an open pit and underground development that would cost around A$306 million to build, potentially producing 130,000ozpa gold and 38,000ozpa silver at all-in sustaining costs of $1721/oz.
Using the base case US$2100/oz gold price, the study delivered a post-tax net present value of $598 million and 46% internal rate of return, with an NPV of A$1.2 billion and 79% IRR using the recent circa US$2800/oz spot price.
Gold currently trades above $2650/oz.
Antipa is looking to kick off prefeasibility study work for Minyari Dome in the first quarter of next year, though a timeline has not yet been confirmed.
Antipa has around A$23 million in cash thanks to the completed sale of its interest in the Citadel project in October.
Shares in the explorer were steady at 2.8c on Monday, capitalizing the stock at $127 million. It has traded between 0.9c and 3.7c over the past year.
Find Out More