Kairos Minerals poised to begin drilling Mt York and Roe Hills next month with strong cash balance
Kairos Minerals has planned 3,000m of RC drilling at Roe Hills and a 20,000m program at Mt York.
After receiving all assays from last year’s campaign at the Mt York gold project, Kairos Minerals (ASX: KAI) is poised to begin another round of drilling next month in search of more gold at Mt York in Western Australia’s Pilbara, with a smaller program also to kick-off at the Roe Hills project, east of Kalgoorlie.
Kairos executive chairman Terry Topping said the company was ready to “hit the ground running at full speed”.
“With a strong cash balance of over $10 million, we’re in a great position to execute this program, and our other exploration plans for the year ahead.”
He said the first program to start will comprise 3,000m of reverse circulation drilling at Roe Hills, which is scheduled to begin in early April.
This program will test a new gold anomaly identified at the Black Cat prospect and follow up on historical nickel and gold results at Caliburn and Talc Lake targets.
“It’s been a couple of years since we last drilled at Roe Hills, and a recent analysis of data suggests we have plenty of unfinished business there,” Mr Topping explained.
Mt York exploration
Up in the state’s north, Kairos has secured a contractor to complete 20,000m of RC drilling at Mt York, with this program to kick-off in mid-April.
As part of this, earthmoving works are underway at Mt York to prepare drill pads and track access.
Mr Topping said drilling at Mt York will follow up on some of the “exciting results” that were reported earlier this year.
The results were from a 16-hole, 2,130m program that was completed in December and targeted the Mt York and Old Faithful deposits within the wider Mt York gold project.
This campaign yielded highlight intersections at Old Faithful of 5m at 2.67 grams per tonne gold from 60m, including 1m at 6.37g/t gold from 63m; 12m at 1.02g/t gold from 44m, including 4m at 2.13g/t gold from 44m; and 12m at 1.32g/t gold from 28m.
At the Mt York deposit a notable result was 4m at 2.09g/t gold from 82m.
Mr Topping said the upcoming drilling planned at Mt York will also target extensions to known resources along with upgrading inferred resources to indicated status.
“This is a major, multi-pronged program aim at taking this well-located 873,000oz gold project to the next level,” he added.
Lithium potential
Meanwhile, with the turnaround in the lithium market, Kairos has elected to terminate a farm-in agreement giving Altura Mining (ASX: AJM) the right to explore for the commodity at its Wodgina spodumene project in the Pilbara.
Altura initially had the right to earn up to 75% of the project by spending $1.25 million over five years from May 2019.
However, in October last year, Altura was placed into voluntary receivership.
Previous reconnaissance sampling at this project has returned up to 1.6% lithium.
“Given the dramatic turnaround in investor sentiment in the lithium sector, we intend to undertake some initial work to determine the potential of this ground before making a decision on how best to extract value for our shareholders,” Mr Topping explained.