Flynn Gold Ltd (ASX:FG1) is encouraged by the first assays from recent diamond drilling at the Firetower Project in northwest Tasmania that have returned high-grade gold-cobalt-tungsten-copper results with shares trading higher.
The results of up to 17 metres at 2.31 g/t gold, 0.16% cobalt, 0.38% tungsten and 0.16% copper from 121 metres confirm the potential for significant polymetallic gold and critical minerals mineralisation.
Within the 17 metres in hole 2019FTD007E was 1.7 metres at 6.64 g/t gold, 0.12% cobalt, 0.87% tungsten and 0.14% copper from 121 metres, and 5.5 metres at 3.27 g/t gold, 0.24% cobalt, 0.53% tungsten and 0.33% copper from 132.5 metres.
The diamond drilling program comprised one new drill hole and three diamond tail extensions to holes previously drilled in 2019, for a total of 496 metres with laboratory assays for most of the program still pending.
High-grade results
Managing director and CEO Neil Marston said “High-grade gold-cobalt-tungsten has been recorded in the first results from drilling at the company’s Firetower Project in northwest Tasmania. Our drilling has been successful in testing for depth extensions of the main mineralised zone.
“The four-hole drill program completed in December 2023 tested depth extension targets generated from our recent review of the project.”
Flynn Gold’s shares were as much as 18% higher within the first hour of ASX trading at $0.59.
Firetower Project geology and gold prospects.
The polymetallic mineralisation at Firetower is currently defined by historic drilling over a strike length of 200 metres and remains open along a highly prospective 6-kilometre-long trend between the Firetower West and Firetower East prospects.
This mineralisation, which partly outcrops, is currently drill-tested to about 150 metres depth and remains open down-dip.
Depth continuity
“Previous drilling at Firetower has been generally shallow and across a limited strike length, with very few holes extending beyond 150 metres from the surface. Several previous drill holes ended in mineralisation,” Marston said.
“These early results demonstrate the depth continuity of mineralisation and highlight the significant potential for high-grade mineralisation to continue at depth and along strike.
“Importantly Flynn already has permits in place to undertake a follow-up drilling program to test for further mineralisation.”
About Firetower
Firetower covers 62 square kilometres and lies in the eastern parts of the highly mineralised Mt Read volcanic sequence which hosts major polymetallic base metals and gold deposits such as Hellyer and Rosebery.
There are also copper-gold deposits such as Mt Lyell (3 million tonnes contained copper and 3.1 million ounces of contained gold) and the Henty gold mine (1.64 million ounces of gold at 12.5 g/t).
The Firetower project is unusual in that there are few reported gold-cobalt-tungsten-copper deposits globally.
Next steps
Flynn Gold intends to undertake the next steps to advance the project once all assays have been received:
- Update the geological model and interpretation;
- Create a resource block model to enable the future estimation of mineral resources and exploration targets;
- Conduct preliminary metallurgical test work, to establish potential processing solutions to extract the polymetallic minerals; and
- Undertake additional drilling under existing permits, focusing on extending the depth of earlier drill holes to test for continuation of the high-grade gold-cobalt-tungsten mineralised zone.
Critical minerals
Cobalt is a critical mineral with increasing demand as a key manufacturing component in the global shift toward clean technologies.
With about 70% of global cobalt production coming from the Democratic Republic of Congo, the world will need alternative sources of this battery metal, particularly from Tier-1 jurisdictions with strong ESG credentials such as Australia.
Tungsten is considered one of the most critical minerals due to its importance across a wide range of applications in various fields and its inability to be substituted in many of these applications due to its high melting point and hardness.