ECR Minerals buoyant on drilling at Black Cat prospect

Precious metals exploration and development company ECR Minerals announced the findings of the reconnaissance rotary air blast (RAB) drilling programme recently completed at the Black Cat gold prospect, in the Bailieston gold project area (EL5433) in Victoria, Australia.

The AIM-traded firm’s wholly-owned Australian subsidiary Mercator Gold Australia has 100% ownership of the Bailieston project.

It said the reconnaissance RAB drilling programme targeted numerous quartz reefs at Black Cat, with a total of 18 shallow holes for 485 metres of drilling.

Significant intersections included seven metres at 1.76 grams per tonne of gold from 35 metres in BCD11, three metres at 4.26 g/t gold from 16 metres in BCD18, and one metre at 6.3 g/t gold from 18 metres in BCD03.

The potential for “supergene enriched mineralisation” at the water table interface and for deeper primary mineralisation could be investigated by drilling deeper holes, the board explained.

It said the Black Cat prospect was located immediately south of ground recently applied for by Newmont Mining, and was among the high priority targets identified by the geophysical interpretation and targeting study completed for MGA in late 2017.

Important geological insights had been generated by the drilling programme, which would guide further exploration at Black Cat and other prospects in the Bailieston gold project area.

“This was a valuable reconnaissance programme at a gold prospect which had never been drilled before, located immediately south of ground recently applied for by a subsidiary of Newmont Mining,” said ECR Minerals chief executive officer Craig Brown.

“The drilling targeted numerous quartz reefs with 18 holes drilled in total.

“Most of the locations had some historical gold mining activity, and all of them had positive previous rock chip sampling results.”

Brown said he was “delighted” with the positive outcomes from the programme.

“As well as some encouraging grades, the drilling has provided important geological information which may help vector further exploration in the project area towards achievement of ECR’s prime strategic objective, which is the discovery of a multi-million ounce gold deposit.”