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- Nova Minerals (NVA) outlines its plans to upgrade the resources at its RPM Gold Project in Alaska following the release of a scoping study for the project earlier this week
- The junior explorer has designed an “extensive” 2022 drilling program to delineate extra high-grade indicated resource and prove-up inferred resources in the project area
- The first phase of the project will see two rigs drill for 5000 metres at the RPM North deposit, with the second phase to see three rigs drill for 15,000 metres in the area
- Nova says it plans to get the drill rigs on-site to kick off the 2022 drilling program in April
- Shares in Nova Minerals are up 3.33 per cent at 2:25 pm AEDT to trade at 62 cents each
Nova Minerals (NVA) has outlined its plans to upgrade the resources at its RPM Gold Project in Alaska following the release of a scoping study for the project earlier this week.
The junior mining company this morning said an “extensive” 2022 drilling program was being designed to delineate extra high-grade indicated resources at the RPM Project. Nova also plans to increase and prove-up the current inferred resources in the area to the higher-confidence ‘indicated’ category.
The extra indicated resources will be included in the Korbel Central Processing Facility as per Monday’s scoping study.
Nova said the first phase of its 2022 drilling program would see two rigs drilling for 5000 metres at the RPM North deposit to infill around a previously discovered high-grade gold intersection.
This round of drilling will also infill the current inferred resource at the deposit, which sits at 23 million tonnes at two grams of gold per tonne (g/t) for 1.5 million ounces of gold. Nova said it hoped to prove-up the resource to the indicated category so it could be immediately included in the RMP production schedule.
Nova’s second phase of 2022 drilling will see three rigs drill for 15,000 metres at the RPM North Deposit to step out and increase the current resource, which Nova said still remained open along strike and at depth.
As part of this phase, Nova will also test the RPM South zone, which it said had been shown to be “highly prospective” through rock chip sampling work.
The RPM project lies next to Nova’s Korbel Gold Project along the Estelle Gold Trend in Alaska.
Nova CEO Christopher Gerteisen said the recently-unveiled scoping study for the RPM project was a major milestone for the company.
“While constrained by the amount of indicated resources available from a single ore source within a starter pit at Korbel Main, we were very pleased to report strong and positive results that show the flow sheet we have developed works better than expected and can support a viable project with exceptional flexibility to maximise opportunities from multiple ore sources that will ultimately come online as we continue to develop the Estelle Gold Trend,” Mr Gerteisen said.
He said the Korbel Main deposit was a key to the “rapid development” of the Estelle Gold Trend, and it had demonstrated itself as a viable stand-alone project expected to contribute a major portion of future gold production alongside the RPM project.
“One must understand the big picture and potential that Nova is developing a gold trend which is endowed with numerous deposits that will eventually be sources of ore to feed into the Korbel Central Processing Facility as designed in the scoping study,” Mr Gerteisen added.
Nova said the gold production rate and project life both had the potential to grow “significantly” from what had been outlined in the scoping study through continued resource upgrades and expansions.
The company said it planned to get drill rigs on-site to kick off the 2022 drilling program in April.
Shares in Nova Minerals were up 3.33 per cent at 2:25 pm AEDT to trade at 62 cents each. The company has a $111 million market cap.
