RE: todays news22 Apr 2021 21:42
Great article thanks
What the money is chasing here is another exploration success along the lines of the Greatland Gold PLC (LON:GGP) discovery that was made at Havieron, on the Paterson Range, a few years ago. The initial gold intercepts at Havieron were some of the best seen in the mining industry in recent years, and after that performance was repeated it was no surprise to anyone that Newcrest horned in on the project to put up some big bucks for a big stake, in the process carrying Greatland’s market capitalisation up beyond the £900mln mark. That’s were the valuation is now, mark you – it has been even higher.
These types of successes don’t come along very often, to be sure, but what’s interesting about the Paterson district, which Greatland’s success put on the map again, is that actually it has long been known to be highly mineralised. The famous Telfer mine was discovered in Paterson in the early 1970s, and the district also hosts the previously producing Nifty copper mine and the Woodie Woodie manganese mine. There’s also a well-established but undeveloped uranium project there too, not to mention countless other smaller discoveries.
But the terrain is very difficult, and the cover is formidable, and Australia has plenty of other well-endowed and easier to access areas. So it took a discovery of the magnitude of Havieron, and a gold price that seems well consolidated above US$1,700, to relight the fires of enthusiasm.
But once Greatland’s success had become clear, a scramble started, ground got staked enthusiastically, and the challenges which had once put off even the most optimistic of prospectors and promoters were now pronounced surmountable. It helped too, of course, that surface-based ground penetrating exploration techniques, like magnetic surveys, had advanced technologically quite significantly since the days of the Telfer discovery.
So now, when a company like Antipa boasts, as it does on the homepage of its website, that it has “the majority of exploration tenure in the eastern Paterson” it’s a statement that carries real resonance.
Antipa’s stated aim is to make world-class discoveries and, with Havieron as everyone’s go-to example, the claim seems ambitious now rather than outlandish.
Antipa will soon get to work, now that the newly-raised A$25mln has come into its coffers, but it won’t by any means be the only one generating newsflow as the winter exploration season starts to roll around in Australia.
Greatland, itself, for one, is also on the hunt for a Havieron lookalike, both on its Juri exploration joint venture with Newcrest and also on ground that it holds on its own. Exploration on both has kicked off within the past few days.
Others who continue to work up ground in the district include Boadicea Resources
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