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- Fresh drilling results from Nova Minerals’ (NVA) Estelle Project in Alaska have confirmed the presence of two high-grade gold domains
- The latest round of results come from deep diamond drilling at two separate drill pads within the modelled pit shell at the Korbel Main deposit
- Drilling will continue at pace as the company looks to upgrade the existing 3.3 million-ounce resource ahead of the project’s preliminary economic assessment
- Nova is also probing a newly-discovered extension to the southeast, and has around 15,000 metres of samples from the program still awaiting assay
- The company’s strategy is to get production up-and-running at Korbel to generate early cashflow while it continues to explore the wider project area
- Nova Minerals is up 11.76 per cent and trading at 19 cents
Fresh drilling results from Nova Minerals’ (NVA) Estelle Project in Alaska have confirmed the presence of two high-grade gold domains.
Check, one, two
The latest round of results come from deep diamond drilling at two separate drill pads at the Korbel Main deposit.
Both holes yielded results across impressively wide intersections to confirm the presence of previously identified high-grade zones.
One hole showed continuous mineralisation across a 420-metre sample, grading 0.4 grams per tonne (g/t) gold from a depth of 27 metres, with a number of small, higher-grade intersections between 30 and 330 metres downhole.
The other drilling returned similar results, with a 549-metre sample grading 0.3 g/t from just three metres below surface.
Both high-grade domains lie within the existing pit model. The company is also probing a newly-discovered extension to the southeast.
Nova CEO Christopher Gerteisen says the Korbel drilling continues to deliver results.
“The mineralisation within the Korbel Main footprint is particularly encouraging as the drilling has now demonstrated several well-defined mineralised domains that will be incorporated into the optimised pit model as we progress through the economic assessment,” Christopher said.
“Drilling continues unabated with one diamond drill rig at Pad 6 testing the newly defined southeast extension of Korbel Main which is contiguous to the same higher-grade mineralised zone through Korbel Main,” he added.
Next steps
Drilling will continue at pace as the company looks to upgrade the existing 3.3-million-ounce resource ahead of the project’s preliminary economic assessment.
Nova is still waiting on results for over 15,000 metres of core samples out of the 25,000 metres drilled so far.
The company says it’s planning to drill up to another 80,000 metres through 2021.
The company’s strategy is to get production up-and-running at its flagship project to generate early cashflow while it continues to explore its holdings in the prolific Tintina Gold Belt.
Nova’s CEO is confident in the company’s dual strategy for Estelle.
“Nova is an ideal position to achieve our goal of progressing Korbel Main to production whilst concurrently unlocking the Estelle gold district,” Christopher said.
“By implementing our dual exploration and development strategy, we will seek to maximise our ability to create value for shareholders through both resource growth and project development,” he added.
Nova Minerals is up 11.76 per cent and trading at 19 cents at 2:18 pm AEDT.
