European Cobalt options Canadian gold property where drilling has hit high-grade mineralisation

European Cobalt (ASX: EUC) has secured an exclusive option to acquire the Edelston gold project in Ontario, Canada.

Extensive mineralisation has already been established with a previous owner completing 156 diamond drill holes over 46,000m.

Intersections from previous work included 5.3m at 81.39 grams per tonne gold, 3.3m at 57.4g/t, and 3.44m at 25.85g/t.

A corridor of 3,300m of strike defined by induced polarisation (IP) imaging has yet to be drill tested. European Cobalt said it has more than 10km of prospective geological strike within the optioned tenure.

The option was obtained by a non-refundable C$100,000 ($108,400) payment. If the option is exercised the company will acquire 100% of the project by paying C$650,000 in cash and issuing the vendor 100,000,000 new European Cobalt shares.

Managing director Rob Jewson described Edelston as an advanced exploration opportunity with “particularly exciting exploration upside potential”.

To date, only 540m of strike has been tested.

C$10m spent so far

More than C$10 million has been spent to date on primarily geophysical and drilling activities across the Edleston project by 55 North Mining Inc (formerly SGX Resources Inc).

The company said that due to the lack of outcrop at surface, exploration has largely been driven by a combination of detailed magnetics to define the structural and lithological framework. IP has been utilised effectively to directly target mineralisation.

Multiple moderate to strong IP chargeability anomalies paralleling and along strike from Edleston are yet to be drill tested.

In addition to the high-grade drilling intercepts reported above, there have been extensive broad scale intersections hit by drilling including 64.9m at 1.82g/t, 101m at 1.06g/t and 94.9m at 0.82g/t.

Experienced Canadian geologist on board

Dale Ginn was appointed to the board in April as technical director.

He has 30 years’ experience as mining executive and geologist working in central Canada. He was part of the discovery team that found Edelston as well as eight other gold deposits.

He said that through his prior involvement in the discovery of Edelston he is delighted to now implement the exploration required there.

“After finishing my involvement at Edelston in 2016, I have been compelled to find a way to unlock the scale of the system and focus on the high-grade targets,” Mr Ginn added.

European Cobalt had previously announced involvement with a gold project at Charters Towers but withdrew before it was finalised.

The company plans what it calls “minimum spend” drilling at its Finland cobalt-copper-gold project while plans for its cobalt-nickel-copper project in Slovakia have been delayed by the subdued cobalt price.