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Andrew Todd
Premier1 has sharpened its aim on a potential Murchison gold discovery at its Abbotts North project in Western Australia, with high-resolution gravity surveys confirming priority drill targets in the burgeoning gold region.
The company says its new gravity data, when layered over existing high-res magnetics, confirmed previously identified gold mineralisation sitting within an intersection of multiple large-scale structures – a classic setting for the formation of high-grade gold deposits.
According to management, the results have bolstered its confidence in the target ahead of an upcoming maiden drilling tilt, which is slated to begin in the second quarter of this year.
‘The high-resolution gravity survey data has provided additional strong support for the prospectivity of the Rochefort target.’
Premier1 executive director Simon Phillips
The prospect in question, Rochefort, has already shown plenty of promise from boots-on-the-ground surface observations. Previous work identified a coherent gold-in-soil anomaly stretching 400m by 350m, backed by high-grade rock chips up to an impressive 11.7 grams per tonne (g/t) gold.
Premier1 executive director Simon Phillips said: “The high-resolution gravity survey data has provided additional strong support for the prospectivity of the Rochefort target. It gives us greater confidence in the structural controls on mineralisation.”
Despite being the company’s secondary project away from its Yalgoo gold tenure, 300km away, Abbotts North’s address adds another layer of allure to its emerging WA gold story.
The project sits just 35km north of Meekatharra in the historically rich, although relatively underexplored Abbotts greenstone belt.
Notably, the Rochefort prospect lies only 20km along strike to the north of New Murchison Gold’s recently discovered and now producing Crown Prince deposit, which hosts a high-grade resource of 2.2 million tonnes grading 3.9g/t gold for 279,000 ounces.
New Murchison is now trucking its high-grade ore to Westgold Resources’ Bluebird processing facility, pushing its market cap to above $500 million.
Mirroring the underexplored greenstones seen at Crown Prince, the set up at Abbotts North shines a light on the discovery upside yet to be tested.
Despite the Abbotts mining centre historically producing 41,000 ounces of gold at an exceptional head grade of 31g/t from shallow quartz reefs, the belt has seen remarkably little modern exploration, particularly on Premier1’s ground.
With geophysics now pinpointing the structural sweet spots, surface geochemistry lighting up with gold and a maiden drilling campaign on the horizon, Premier1 is building a robust case for yet another discovery in the Abbotts greenstones.
Is your ASX-listed company doing something interesting? Contact: mattbirney@bullsnbears.com.au
