Future Battery Minerals Defines New Gold Targets at Burbanks East Project after Geophysical Review

Future Battery Minerals (ASX: FBM) has defined seven broad and discrete gold targets in a review of its Burbanks East project in Western Australia’s goldfields region.

The targets exhibit strong coincidence with elevated geochemical anomalies, including a previously identified gold-in-soils target 2.7 kilometres in length that has not been subject to historical drilling.

Two of the targets returned significant intercepts, with best assays of 8 metres at 3.37 grams per tonne gold from 32m, 10m at 0.9g/t gold from 36m including 2m at 3.1g/t, and 3m at 4.57g/t gold from 28m.

New Tenements

In June, Future Battery Minerals lodged applications for seven new contiguous tenements to expand the Burbanks East acreage to 10 square kilometres.

The tenements cover a 5km strike of greenstone lithologies prospective for gold and located within a broader proven fertile gold belt.

They are nearby to the operating MacPhersons Reward gold mine owned by Beacon Minerals, ASX: BCN, and 1.5km east of the Burbanks gold mine and processing plant operated by Horizon Minerals, ASX: HRZ.

The expansion will increase the company’s landholdings across the Coolgardie Greenstone Belt to over 75sqkm, wholly-owned and free from any third-party royalties or offtake agreements.

Miriam Footprint

Burbank East builds on Future Battery Minerals’ existing gold footprint at the Miriam project, which it acquired in May from Corazon Mining (ASX: CZN), where historical drilling at the Forrest target intercepted shallow gold believed to be regolith and hosted in fresh rock.

Best assays from that work were 12m at 2.09g/t gold from 60m, 10m at 2.51g/t gold from 30m, and 10m at 2.09g/t gold from 30m.

The company expects assay results from a 21-hole Phase 1 drilling campaign at Miriam in September to support delivery of a maiden gold resource estimate.

Strong Results

Chief executive officer Nick Rathjen said the systematic exploration of the Burbanks East tenure was delivering strong results.

“These results mirror the gold targeting evaluative work produced to date at our nearby Miriam project and strongly evidence the significant gold prospectivity waiting to be unlocked across our broader Coolgardie portfolio,” he said.

“Additional ground truthing and mapping at Burbanks East will aim to refine and advance these targets to drill-ready status, while granting of our expanded tenure applications is progressing.”

Cash at Hand

Future Battery Minerals had $6.4 million cash at hand and zero debt as at the end of June.

Cash outflows for the quarter totalled $598,000 for exploration and evaluation expenditure, the acquisition of a remaining 15% interest in Coolgardie Nickel, a royalty option payment related to the Miriam deal, and the Burbanks East tenement applications.

The company spent $356,000 administration and corporate costs during the period and $128,000 in payments to related parties including directors and their associates.