Maiden drilling by Sky Metals confirms historic high-grade results at Cullarin gold project

A maiden drilling program by Sky Metals (ASX: SKY) at its Cullarin gold project in New South Wales has intercepted “outstanding results”, according to an announcement today.

The program at the project’s Hume prospect was completed last month with two diamond core holes drilled approximately 200m apart to test and extend the scale and tenor of gold mineralisation recorded in historic drilling.

Both holes intersected a broad package of strongly-altered volcaniclastic rocks with associated zinc and lead sulphides, consistent with the target ‘McPhillamy’s style’ gold mineralisation.

Mineralisation in the second hole was stronger and included visible gold, indicating the potential for a significant high-grade gold system at Hume.

Following this, better assays were recorded in the second hole such as 93m at 4.24g/t gold from 56m, including 36m at 2.88g/t gold and 14m at 20.2g/t gold.

The hole also included zones of significant core loss in shallow sections associated with mineralisation.

Lower recoveries were associated with broken and clay altered zones.

An analysis was done to determine the possibility of a link between core loss with higher gold grade, with the outcome indicating no association.

Planning for follow-up drilling is now underway, and Sky said low core recoveries are expected to be remedied with wider core diameters and slower drill rates.

Strategy validation

Chief executive officer Mark Arundell was pleased with the maiden program and the next stage of exploration.

“These are outstanding results and a very strong validation of [our] gold strategy and targeting methodology,” he said.

“[Combined] with the soil sampling results, they upgrade the potential tenor and scale of the Hume target and we are tremendously excited by the possibilities of the next stage of exploration.”

Same rock, new target

The Hume prospect is located at the southern end of the Cullarin project tenement, approximately 20km west of Goulburn.

Exploration in the late 1980s focused on VHMS base metal mineralisation.

Sky is now targeting ‘McPhillamy’s style’ gold mineralisation within the same rock sequence, but at a slighter lower stratigraphic level.

This strategy leverages the experience gained during exploration and discovery of the McPhillamys gold deposit in 2017, which contained 60.1 million tonnes at 1.05g/t gold for 2.03 million ounces.

In late morning trade, shares in Sky Metals were up 176% to $0.29.