Oracle Power reports progress on Western Australia projects

Natural resources project developer Oracle Power updated the market on its gold exploration projects in Western Australia on Wednesday, reporting that at the Jundee East Gold Project, a slimline reverse circulation track-mounted drill rig had been secured, with mobilisation to site expected in late January or early February.

The AIM-traded firm said five targets were identified from geochemical sampling undertaken to date for the maiden drill programme.

It said the objective of the maiden drill campaign would be to confirm the presence of a previously-unrecognised greenstone belt proximal to Northern Star's Jundee Gold Mine.

The Jundee East Gold Project is located within the Yandal Gold Province - a tier-1 gold belt, host to numerous multi-million-ounce gold systems.

At the Northern Zone Gold Project, Oracle said assay results from the first phase of drilling were now being finalised by ALS Global, and were expected in late December or early January for internal processing and analysis.

Initial reports from the laboratory were said to be “very encouraging”.

As it had previously announced, the first phase reverse circulation drill programme was completed in October, testing up to a depth of 260 metres and mainly targeting gold mineralisation within a series of stacked porphyry intrusions, with 1,161 assay samples dispatched to ALS Global for processing.

The company said the Northern Zone lay in an area “highly prospective” for gold, and was about 25 kilometres east of Kalgoorlie, the home of Australia’s second-largest gold mine 'Super Pit'.

Historic drill intercepts at the Northern Zone included nine metres at 5.06 grams of gold per tonne at hole BNRC017, one metre at 39.82 grams per tonne on hole BNRC033, three metres at 3.72 grams per tonne in hole BNRC067, two metres at 23.27 grams per tonne and 40 metres at 1.2 grams per tonne at hole BNRC069, and six metres at 2.12 grams and two metres at 12.98 grams per tonne on hole BNRC051.

“We continue to push forward with our exploration campaigns at both Jundee East and Northern Zone, and we look forward to 2022 which we hope will yield positive results from both assets,” said chief executive officer Naheed Memon.

“We are extremely eager to commence drilling at Jundee East, which will represent the first drill testing of the potential new greenstone belt discovered by the Oracle team following our acquisition of the licences last year.

“This project is located in one of the best postcodes for gold large gold discoveries in Western Australia, and we have identified five priority targets from geochemical sampling which will guide our drilling activities during this campaign.”

Memon said that at the Northern Zone, the firm was expecting the assay results to be returned before the end of the month after a “short delay” at the laboratory.

“We remain very optimistic about these assays and once they have been processed and analysed by our team internally, we will publish them to the market.

“Previous results from Northern Zone have demonstrated good widths and grades and we remain bullish about the potential for this project to deliver compelling results from our work campaigns in 2022.”

At 1423 GMT, shares in Oracle Power were down 3.53% at 0.41p.