Evolution Mining targets more than $1.9b annual cash flow on the back of strong drilling results

Evolution Mining’s (ASX: EVN) ambitious growth plans continue to gather momentum with further drilling successes across its portfolio.

The latest results have boosted the company’s confidence in the upside potential at its Ernest Henry, Northparkes and Cowal operations.

Evolution is now on track to record more than $1.9 billion in operating cash flow for the year.

Triple success

“At Ernest Henry, step-out drilling down-plunge of recently reported drill intercepts confirms that the high gold and copper grades present in the Bert ore body continue well beyond the boundaries of previously modelled mineralisation domains,” vice president of discovery Glen Masterman said.

“Likewise, at Northparkes, we are excited about the potential to grow the footprint of near-surface copper-gold mineralisation at the Major Tom and E51 open-pit targets [and] drilling is continuing in the December quarter with the aim of delineating the full extent of mineralisation at both prospects.”

“Pleasingly, the new drill results from Cowal have identified a potential resource target between the open pit and the underground in an area that has not been well explored,” Mr Masterman added.

Ernest Henry expansion

Drilling in the high-grade Bert area of the Ernest Henry mine in Queensland intersected wide gold and copper intersections located around 100m down-plunge from the current mineral resource.

Further drilling is now underway at Bert, where mineralisation occurs adjacent to the north wall of the open pit and remains open at depth.

Bert is considered an exciting opportunity by Evolution for mineral resource growth and potential incremental production growth at Ernest Henry.

Wide intersections

The new drilling in the Major Tom and E51 areas of the Northparkes project in NSW has intersected wide zones of near-surface copper-gold mineralisation.

Evolution’s current drilling program aims to delineate the scale and grade of the potential open-pit targets, which are both located within 3 kilometres of the processing plant.

The next round of drilling at Major Tom will be aiming to expand the lateral extent of mineralisation, while the next step at E51 will see the commencement of geological modelling of the new drilling data.

Cowal assays

At the company’s Cowal underground mine in NSW, significant drill assay results have been obtained from a new target zone situated between the E42 pit and underground ore-bodies.

Drilling targeted the junction of a fault and a contact between intrusive and sedimentary rocks, approximately 150m east of the current E42 pit.

The new target area is considered to be under-explored and follow-up drilling is planned to test for the continuity and scale of mineralisation.