Kairos Minerals back in field after virus ban lifts, drilling planned at Pilbara gold project next month

Kairos Minerals (ASX: KAI) has resumed field work at its 100% owned Pilbara gold project in Western Australia, claiming multiple targets and opportunities would keep it busy for the foreseeable future.

The exploration focus is finding a Hemi-style deposit and developing a pipeline of drilling targets.

Pilbara gold has become a big story since De Grey Mining (ASX:DEG) announced in December last year that it had made a large gold discovery at the Hemi target within its wider Mallina project near Port Hedland.

Ongoing drilling news from the Hemi discovery sent De Grey from trading at less than $0.05 a share to a present market capitalisation of more than $700 million, with the company trading at $0.65 at midday.

Kairos executive chairman Terry Topping said he was “excited” for the company to be back in the field following the lifting of the COVID-19 travel restrictions imposed by the Western Australian Government.

Exploration will be funded via the company’s successful $2.5 million capital raising and $1.7 million rights issue.

“This marks a very busy period for the company as we embark on a new multi-pronged exploration campaign,” Mr Topping said.

Field exploration work is underway with Kairos about to carry out an aeromagnetic survey looking for Hemi-style features.

Meanwhile, the CSIRO has been engaged for ultra-fine soil sampling, with all government approvals in place for both trenching and drilling.

Field season aimed at boosting 873,000oz resource

The Pilbara gold project area is about 100km south of Port Hedland and, since acquiring it in early 2016, Kairos has established a JORC indicated and inferred resource of 20.93 million tonnes at 1.3 grams per tonne of gold for a contained 873,000oz.

The ground includes the old Lynas Find mine which, between 1994 and 1998, produced more than 125,000oz. That mine was operated by the former Lynas Gold, which in 2000 changed its name to Lynas Corp to become the present-day rare earths miner.

Mr Topping said he was looking forward to seeing what this field season can deliver for the company’s shareholders “at a time when investor interest in gold exploration in the Pilbara is at an all-time high thanks to the rapidly emerging high-grade discovery at De Grey Mining’s Hemi prospect”.

Among the work being planned is drilling at the Fuego prospect.

The company describes that discovery as a “significant” step forward in Kairos’ Pilbara exploration program.

The Fuego prospect is a 150m to 200m-wide gold anomaly that extends over a strike length of more than 10km above a cut-off of 30 parts per billion (ppb) gold and includes a 1.1km-long high-grade core that has produced peak values up to 648ppb gold (or 0.64g/t).

First drilling will begin at the Mt York zone where the company says it has “significant unfinished business” remaining from its truncated drilling program there last year, with Fuego drilling to begin in July, too.