North of 60 Mining News - The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North

Nova Minerals Ltd. May 15 announced that it has begun an up to 50,000-meter drill program slated for this year at its Estelle gold property in Alaska.

With the drills focused on expanding and upgrading both the Korbel and RPM deposits for inclusion in the phase-two scoping study to be completed later this year and a prefeasibility study in 2023, Nova says this year's program is the most important for the company so far.

"This is another transformational year for Nova and we are excited to be recommencing drilling to further unlock the Estelle Gold Trend, with the view to adding additional tonnage to the already large resource, particularly in the higher Indicated category from both the RPM and Korbel Main deposits, for inclusion in the very important upcoming Phase 2 Scoping Study," said Nova Minerals CEO Christopher Gerteisen.

The phase-one scoping study, which was released by Nova in February, provided a first look at establishing an operation at Estelle that would mine 195 million metric tons of ore from the Korbel Main deposit averaging 0.41 grams per metric ton.

This "snapshot in time" study is based on 286 metric tons of Australian Joint Ore Reserves Committee-compliant indicated resources in the Korbel Main deposit averaging 0.3 g/t (3 million oz) gold, plus 583 million metric tons of inferred resource averaging 0.3 g/t (5.1 million oz) gold.

At a US$1,750/oz gold price, the mine outlined in the scoping study is forecast to generate a pre-tax net present value (5% discount) of US$381 million and an internal rate of return of 20.4%.

While this indicates an economically viable mine, the operation outlined in the next scoping study is expected to benefit from further upgrades of the large inferred resource at Korbel and the inclusion of ore from RPM, a higher-grade deposit about 16 miles to the south.

"We anticipate the inclusion of the high-grade RPM feed ore through the proposed Korbel Central Processing Plant, with minimal additional capital expenditure required as the current proposed plant has the flexibility to receive feed from ore sorter grade control and multiple ore sources, will result in significantly higher economic metrics being proved for the project in the Phase 2 Scoping Study due later this year," said Gerteisen.

This year's drilling is starting with infill holes focused on upgrading resources at Korbel Main.

In the meantime, crews are building pads to begin the 2022 drilling at RPM.

Based on one hole drilled in 2012 and six completed by Nova last year, RPM North hosts 23.1 million metric tons of JORC-compliant inferred resource averaging 2 g/t (1.5 million oz) gold.

Earlier this year, the company announced plans for at least a 20,000-meter drill program aimed at upgrading and expanding the RPM deposit.

This drilling is expected to start by following up on RPM-005, a 2021 hole that cut 400 meters averaging 3.5 g/t gold from surface, including a 132-meter subsection averaging 10.1 g/t gold from 89 meters.

Nova Minerals Ltd.

Click on image for a larger Korbel 2022 drill map.

Nova says regional geophysics has identified a magnetic anomaly that confirms continuity of the mineralized intrusive contact zone found by the highest-grade zone in hole RPM-005 that extends for 1,000 meters along strike. This year's drilling is expected to include fans of holes from drill pads along this trend plus holes at RPM South, which is about 750 meters southeast of RPM North.

"With the team's experience, commitment, vision, and passion, we look forward to keeping the market updated as we advance the company through this truly exciting and transformational period as we continue to progress on our plans of unlocking a large gold trend containing multiple bulk tonnage gold deposits with the ultimate goal of becoming a world-class, tier-one, global gold producer," Gerteisen concluded.

Author Bio

Shane Lasley, Publisher

Over his more than 16 years of covering mining and mineral exploration, Shane has become renowned for his ability to report on the sector in a way that is technically sound enough to inform industry insiders while being easy to understand by a wider audience.

• Email: [email protected]
• Phone: (907) 726-1095
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/shane-lasley-ab073b12/