Nova Minerals gears up for productive 2024 at Estelle gold project in Alaska

A cashed-up Nova Minerals (ASX: NVA) is on target to complete a number of key milestones this year along the path to bringing its high-quality Estelle gold project in Alaska into production.

A successful 2023 saw Nova further enhance the scale and strength of Estelle’s gold potential while also highlighting additional silver and antimony upside as it progresses towards the finalisation of a pre-feasibility study (PFS) for the project.

Chief executive officer Christopher Gerteisen said 2023 highlights included the return of a very robust phase 2 scoping study, targeted drilling success and an extensive surface exploration program across the entire 513 sq km project site, allowing Nova to build a great foundation for a very active 2024.

Five rigs ready

The company plans to have five drill rigs (four diamond and one reverse circulation) in place to help further unveil the Estelle riches at its high-grade RPM deposit and in the new Train areas within the project.

At RPM, the program will be designed to further increase the confidence of the resource and to specifically test the potential extension of the high-grade core, which remains open to the south, east and at depth.

Drilling in the Train section will follow up on the promising results obtained from the high-grade rock and soil samples discovered in 2023.

Updated mineral resource estimate

Nova’s 2024 activities will include updating the global mineral resource estimate, with the company planning to include silver in its estimates this year due to its confidence in the potential for significant by-product credits.

The company is also progressing a strategic review with a focus on getting into production as soon as possible while continuing to complete its in-depth PFS level studies.

“The work we conducted in 2023 has continued to illustrate the unique opportunity that we have at the Estelle gold project and we will now look to grow on the successes achieved with outstanding potential for exploration upside and further discoveries in 2024 with all results to be incorporated into an updated resource estimate for the PFS,” Mr Gerteisen said.

“In addition, we are very aware of the value in domestically-sourced critical mineral antimony and we are looking at these discoveries from many angles with multiple parties to define and bring online and will keep you updated as those discussions progress.

“The in-depth formal strategic review process and PFS studies across the Estelle gold project are now well underway, which aims to study additional processing options to further optimise our flow sheet at the lowest possible CAPEX and set a faster path to commercial production.”

Antimony potential

Listed as a critical mineral in a number of countries, antimony offers significant potential earnings upside for Nova at Estelle.

The company is set to follow up on two new gold-antimony prospect areas it has recently identified at Stibium and Styx, where surface samples have returned high-grade gold, silver and antimony.

Further numerous high-grade gold, silver, copper and antimony samples were also recently found at the Train and Trumpet prospects.

The antimony market was estimated to be valued at $415 million in 2022 and total antimony revenue is expected to grow by 5.9% between 2023 and 2029 to reach nearly $620m.