Oracle Power completes maiden drilling at Jundee East Gold Project

Natural resources developer Oracle Power has completed its maiden drill programme at its wholly-owned Jundee East Gold Project in the Eastern Goldfields region of Western Australia, it announced on Monday.

The AIM-traded firm said maiden drill testing of a previously-unrecognised greenstone belt had been completed, with the objective to confirm its presence and develop a better understanding of its gold resource potential.

It said the first-pass reverse circulation programme consisted of 54 holes, to a maximum depth of 153 metres, for a total of 3,830 metres.

Drilling was focussed on five priority areas identified from a geochemical programme in 2021, with the programme completed on time, and results expected in between six and eight weeks.

At the Northern Zone, meanwhile, Oracle said diamond drilling would start in the coming weeks to improve its understanding of the geometry and extent of the project.

The project had an Exploration Target of between 200 and 250 million tonnes at 0.4 to 0.6 grams of gold per tonne, for 2.5 to 4.8 million ounces of gold.

Oracle said it would make further announcements to confirm the start of drilling, and detail the programme’s objectives.

“Our work in Western Australia is intensifying - building on the work completed in 2021 which demonstrated that we have not one, but two highly prospective projects which may have the potential to become future gold mines,” said chief executive officer Naheed Memon.

“The maiden drill programme at Jundee East is a big milestone for us as this is the first time that modern drilling has been applied to this newly discovered greenstone belt.

“We expect the assay results in six-eight weeks' time, subject to lab availability, and this will give us a clearer indication of the style of mineralisation we are looking at.”

Memon said that at the Northern Zone, the company was looking to keep its momentum and build on the results it received in January.

“Having a current exploration target of 2.5 to 4.8 million ounces for this project certainly shows that we have the scale and potential resource quantum to establish a gold mining operation and we are delighted to have secured a diamond drill rig to ensure that our work here is expedited.”

At 1448 GMT, shares in Oracle Power were down 3.87% at 0.3p.