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- Nova Minerals (NVA) recommences drilling at its Estelle Gold Trend in Alaska’s Tintina gold belt following a fresh capital management strategy
- The drilling program will begin at the Korbel Valley project along the Estrelle trend and will include maiden testwork at the Cathedral target
- Nova is mobilising additional drill crews to the project site as it prepares to ramp up drilling over the coming weeks.
- The company says this year’s drilling program will be the most “important and transformational” for Nova to date
- Shares in Nova Minerals are down 3.17 per cent to 61 cents each at 11:09 am AEST
Nova Minerals (NVA) has recommenced drilling at its Estelle Gold Trend in Alaska’s Tintina gold belt following a fresh capital management strategy.
The strategy, announced in April, has capitalised Nova with around $28 million in cash. The company said its drilling work in Alaska has kicked back off even as various mine and process optimisation, material haulage, and environmental studies were still ongoing.
The drilling program will begin at the Korbel Valley project along the Estrelle trend and will include maiden testwork at the Cathedral target which has reconnaissance rock chip samples of up to 114 grams per tonne (g/t) gold.
Nova is mobilising additional drill crews to the project site as it prepares to ramp up drilling over the coming weeks.
The company plans to use four diamond drill rigs and an RC scout drill to be used in its 2022 drilling work, with the possibility of further rigs to be added later based on assay result confirmations.
Nova said this drilling program would be the “most important and transformational” for the company to date.
CEO Christopher Gerteisen said the company aimed to increase the size and confidence of the Korbel and RPM deposits for inclusion in a phase-two scoping study, due later this year, and a pre-feasibility study (PFS) in 2023.
“We anticipate the inclusion of the high-grade RPM feed ore through the proposed
Korbel Central Processing Plant … will result in significantly higher economic metrics being proved for the project in the phase-two scoping study due later this year,” Mr Gerteisen said.
“Our exploration efforts to date have produced results at an extremely low cost per discovered ounce and we intend to maintain this run rate with additional drill rigs and the on-site prep lab allowing economies of scale.”
Shares in Nova Minerals were down 3.17 per cent to 61 cents each at 11:09 am AEST.
