The start of a mega news rich period for ECR Minerals is now
“…With progress on the ground, and money in the bank, ECR seems well placed to further clarify the promise of its resources through the remainder of the year: look out for updates from Creswick, Lolworth, Baillieston and – possibly – Blue Mountain over the next few months…”
ECR Minerals (AIM:ECR), a mineral exploration and development company focused on gold in Australia’s Victoria and Queensland regions, continues to expand its focus beyond the Bailieston and Creswick gold projects with which it has long been associated. Cashed up, and with campaigns across three projects, with a possible fourth in the works, the company’s share price has risen 20pc since it set out a new strategy last autumn.
To those new to ECR, covered by TMS earlier this year, the company has a 100pc interest in the Bailieston and Creswick projects in central Victoria, comprising eight active exploration tenements and two in application, and three approved exploration permits, also fully owned, covering a relatively unexplored area in the Lolworth Range, Queensland, some 120 km west of the well known Charters Towers gold district. ECR has submitted a license application for Kondaparinga, an area of approximately 120 km2 located within the Hodgkinson Gold Province in North Queensland, where it is proposing an exploration programme to verify historic stream results, paving the way for a detailed survey programme. The company also has a 90pc interest in the Danglay gold exploration project in an established gold and copper mining district in the Philippines.
Progress at Creswick, Lolworth and Baillieston
With new directors onboard, ECR set on a fresh course last year, introducing stringent financial controls, undertaking two major fundraises and accelerating the company’s pace of operations, achieving promising results at both Creswick and Lolworth.
Drilling at Creswick around the turn of the year yielded a preliminary update reporting ‘extensive evidence of anomalous gold’ with the best result being 23.39 g/t gold over 1 metre, and a second update, focused on laboratory analysis of bulk samples left over from the preliminary results, stating ‘both greater prevalence and higher grades of gold’ with the best result now 41.03 g/t gold over 1 metre. Several other significant results included 10.26 g/t, 8.46 g/t and 6.22 g/t gold, and bulk sample results showed contiguous gold over multiple metres.
The results encouraged a second phase of drilling at Creswick’s Kuboid Hill prospect, an update published last month reporting quartz/gold mineralisation continuity in the Creswick with ‘the hallmarks of a potential future small scale operation.’ High grade results included 8.87g/t Au and 8.06g/t Au over 1 metre, but ‘far more significant’ was the extensive broad mineralisation demonstrated in several holes where contiguous gold is present at 3.05g/t Au over 3 metres, 2.25g/t Au over 4 metres and 1g/t Au over 5 metres. An aggregated 51 metres of mineralised quart returned significant intercepts with evidence of anomalous gold within 14 of the 15 holes drilled.
ECR believes the prospect compares ‘very favourably’ with historical mining operations elsewhere in Victoria with broad mineralisation, where grades averaged around 0.7 g/t Au. The company said ‘the geological features demonstrate a distinct difference from the challenges historically faced in the region which we have previously understood to be predominated by the sporadic or random nature of coarse nuggety gold. With this new analysis what we now understand is that Kuboid Hill has a potentially extensive presence of larger ore bodies from much broader quartz/gold mineralised zones.’
Though the company stressed there can be no guarantee at this early stage that Creswick will produce gold, ‘we consider this indicative of the potential in this area.’ Further data on Kuboid Hill’s bulk samples published earlier this month revealed new mineralised zones, consistent with earlier updates, including sampling results of 3.05g/t Au and 2.53 g/t Au over 1 metre upgraded from 0.76 and 0.37 g/t Au respectively.
ECR is also making good progress at Baillieston, also in Victoria. An update earlier this month said stream sampling carried out at three areas with no known historical workings have shown encouraging surface expressions of anomalous gold, including results of 798 ppb Au and 712 ppb Au from two streams on the western flank of the Black Cat Fault, a prominent ridgeline 400m long in strike offering further prospectivity. The company is currently re-analysing a number of drill cores for the presence of antimony (a semi-metal typically used in the electronics industry to make semiconductor devices, such as infrared detectors and diodes, and which can be alloyed with lead and other metals to improve their strength).
Progress at Creswick and Baillieston follows bright results from early exploration at Lolworth undertaken last year, which revealed numerous gold-bearing streams as well as indications of rare earths mineralisation. ECR said early indications ‘exceeded expectations across all metrics’, with sampling returning multiple gold anomalies with a 14pc visible gold strike rate, and indicating the prospect ‘could be host to significant Gold, Niobium, Tantalum and REE discoveries’.
Earlier this year the company published a promising set of results from last year’s field work , including rock chips of 22 g/t with stream samples of 205 PPM (Parts Per Million) at the Reedy Creek prospect, 13.75 g/t with 1395 PPM from Gorge Creek, and 962 PPM at Butterfly Creek. Other prospects identified but yet to be explored in more detail. The company said ‘work at surface, whilst early stage, is designed to predict what may occur in greater concentrations at deeper levels and the widespread presence of gold in our sample results increases our confidence in both the prospectivity and potential scale of the Lolworth resource.’
Finances and plans for 2024
ECR is fully funded for its 2024 exploration programme, raising £580,000 last September by way of a direct subscription with high net worth individuals and institutional investors, and another £585,000 (before expenses) in March at a 71pc premium to previous raise, demonstrating, the company says, ‘robust support from the secondary market, not only for our approach but also for the positive strides we have made in a relatively short timeframe’.
The company has a number of other active and potential revenue streams. A scheme to realise value from assets it no longer requires is covering G&A expenses, notably AUD$350,000 raised through a hire purchase agreement for a surplus drilling rig. The company saves further cost by settling supplier fees through the issue of shares whenever possible. It also holds a royalty on the SLM gold project in La Rioja Province, Argentina, and has the right to receive up to AUD$2m subject to production on three Victoria gold projects sold to Fosterville South Exploration
ECR’s AGM Statement, published last month, outlined how the company plans to put the funds to use through the rest of the year. ECR intends a follow-up work programme at Creswick ‘before identifying optimal sites for drilling in due course’. It is preparing to return to Lolworth to undertake a trenching campaign intended to provide ‘a better understanding of the subsurface geology which will be a key step towards identifying and then ranking drill targets’.
Preparations are also underway for an inaugural exploration campaign at Blue Mountain, another Queensland prospect. Speaking to TMS last month, ECR said the asset had moved up the company’s priority list, after ongoing study indicated it had become ‘increasingly evident that the historical work conducted by the previous owner holds significantly more interest than previously thought.’ Blue Mountain currently encompasses ‘a relatively straightforward alluvial gold system’ reported to contain at least 100,000 ounces. The ‘readily accessible’ system ‘presents the potential to accelerate the project towards “production-ready status” in the near future, subject to the necessary licensing permissions’. ECR says the site’s landowners ‘have expressed their willingness to work with us on the project which has further increased our confidence that the project could well exceed our initial expectations.’
Outlook
ECR’s progress comes as gold continues its long rally. The metal’s value has risen more than 40pc since November 2022 as central banks have built up stocks to diversify reserves away from the US dollar, and investors have sought safe havens from uncertainties generated by the conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza. Big bets by Chinese speculators have pushed prices higher still: gold hit an all-time peak of $2,431 per troy ounce last month, and is still above $2,400 at the time of writing.
ECR has made big efforts to turn its ship around over the past few months after its value subsided through 2021 and 2022: the company’s value is up a fifth over the past half year, taking its share price to 0.26p and market cap to £4.8m. With progress on the ground, and money in the bank, ECR seems well placed to further clarify the promise of its resources through the remainder of the year: look out for updates from Creswick, Lolworth, Baillieston and – possibly – Blue Mountain over the next few months.
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