URU announces gold discovery on disposed project

URU announced a new gold zone discovery on the Zeb Project in Limpopo, South Africa on Tuesday, which remains its main interest despite disposing of it last year.

The AIM-traded firm completed the disposal of the project to Zeb Nickel Corporation in August.

It said the project remained its “primary focus”, however, through its 74.82% interest in Zeb Nickel and its continuing role as the project’s technical advisor.

URU said hole Z029 intersected 9.05 grams of gold per tonne over 28.32 metres, including 12.21 grams per tonne over 10.86 metres and including 11.25 grams per tonne over 10.64 metres.

Hole Z027, meanwhile, intersected 1.67 grams of gold per tonne over 33.81 metres, including 5.07 grams per tonne over 4.81 metres.

The company said the gold zone discovery was located in lithologies adjacent to, and beneath, the nickel and platinum group element (PGE) mineralised zones.

Gold was intersected in two of the eight holes in the recently-completed second phase drilling programme.

The discovery of gold now meant there were three known different styles and zones of mineralisation within the project area - the nickel mineralisation in Lower Zone lithologies, the nickel-PGE mineralisation associated with Critical Zone lithologies, and the newly-discovered gold mineralisation.

“Historical drilling was largely focussed on defining the nickel resource in the Lower Zone lithologies, and consequently, many of these historical holes stopped short of intersecting the lithologies that host the nickel-PGE mineralisation, and potential gold mineralisation,” Zeb Nickel said in its statement.

“Based on the exploration successes in phase one of this drill programme, the Zeb exploration team made the decision that phase two holes should all be drilled into the Penge Iron Formation to test for nickel-PGE mineralisation in footwall rocks of any Critical Zone lithologies present on the project area.

“This policy has resulted in numerous intersections of nickel-PGE mineralisation in Critical Zone rocks which were not previously identified in historical drilling, as well as the new gold discovery.”

At 1344 BST, shares in URU Metals were down 28.89% at 320p.