Marmota awaiting approvals for drilling at Campfire Bore gold and Junction Dam uranium
Drilling will start on either deposit depending on which receives approval first
Drilling expected to start within 2 to 3 weeks
Special Report: With gold and uranium continuing to boom, Marmota is gearing up exploration at its Junction Dam uranium project and Gawler Gold projects in South Australia.
Junction Dam is just 15km west of Boss Energy’s (ASX:BOE) Honeymoon project that recently produced its first drum of uranium as part of the commissioning process and expects to start delivering product to its offtake customers in July 2024. Marmota’s (ASX:MEU) project already has an inferred resource of 5.4Mlbs U3O8 at a grade of 557 parts per million (ppm) within the Saffron deposit, which only just got started when Fukushima happened.
There is plenty of room to grow this resource through the identified exploration target of 22-33Mlb at 400-700ppm U3O8 over the Saffron, Bridget and Yolanda targets.
In particular, a review by uranium specialist Mark Couzens identified the presence of not one but two uranium systems of different ages at Bridget along with the existence of what appears to be a 20m high stacked uranium roll front.
This is intriguing given the energy metal’s bullish outlook following the US Government’s move to ban the import of enriched uranium from Russia and declining output from Canada and Kazakhstan.
Junction Dam bookends the Honeymoon uranium mine. Pic: Marmota
The Golden Moon gold JV is a more recent entrant into the company’s portfolio.
Marmota reached an agreement with private company Coombedown Resources in April to grow the gold resources on the Golden Moon JV tenements, all near its Aurora Tank deposit, where drilling has returned multiple bonanza grade gold intersections close to surface. Marmota. The JV includes 4 gold deposits with existing JORC resource within 100m of the surface and amenable to low-cost open pit mining, none of which have been drilled in 8 years and with enormous potential to grow. Marmota has a 90% stake in the JV, and MEU will free carry Coombedown until a decision to mine is made across the key JV gold deposits of Golf Bore, Campfire Bore, Greenwood and Mainwood.
The Golden Moon JV deposits. Pic: Marmota
Exploration acceleration
MEU has already designed the initial drill programs for Campfire Bore – by a team with the same geologists that designed the program that discovered Challenger and transformed Aurora Tank.
Marmota is awaiting approvals at both Campfire Bore (Golden Moon JV) and Junction Dam uranium. It noted that whichever is drilled first will depend on which project secures approval first, with the second to follow.
Marmota states that it expects to commence drilling in 2 to 3 week’s time.
The company also noted that metallurgical test work on low-cost low capex heap leach recoveries at the advanced Aurora Tank gold project is progressing “extremely well” and that Marmota expects it to complete in the next couple of months.
This article was developed in collaboration with Marmota, a Stockhead advertiser at the time of publishing.
This article does not constitute financial product advice. You should consider obtaining independent advice before making any financial decisions.
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