Mining

Oakdale Resources placement oversubscribed as drilling starts on Nevada multi-million ounce gold target

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By Robin Bromby - 
Oakdale Resources ASX OAR Lambarson Canyon Project Nevada gold

Nevada is the sixth largest gold mining jurisdiction worldwide.

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Investor appetite for gold raisings seemingly remains unsatiated with Oakdale Resources (ASX: OAR) securing $2.2 million as it starts drilling one of three projects that, together, are estimated to hold between 1.5 million ounces and 3Moz in the US state of Nevada.

The new shares were issued at $0.021, a 31% premium to the company’s one-day volume-weighted average price. The placement was oversubscribed by $785,000, with the new shares coming with a one-for-one free-attaching option exercisable at $0.03 each.

This latest placement has brought new Australian and foreign institutions on to the Oakdale register.

A diamond drill rig is now working at the Lambarson Canyon gold project, one of the three Nevada projects. Drillers are targeting high-grade outcropping gold mineralisation.

Initial field work at the outcropping areas returned a channel sample of 3m at 6.97 grams per tonne gold, while a rock chip sample assayed at 61.6g/t.

Additional holes will focus on a separate geophysical anomaly south of the outcropping.

Oakdale claims the ground in northern Nevada is geologically similar to million ounce-plus deposits in the Battle Mountain-Cortez and Getchell trends.

Nevada’s Bureau of Land Management has granted permission for five holes.

After that work is completed, the rig will move to the second area, Douglas Canyon, where it will test multiple high-grade outcropping epithermal quartz vein systems.

Nevada dominant gold producing US state

Some 74% of all gold mined in the United States has come from mines in Nevada, and the state is the sixth largest gold mining jurisdiction in the world with 5.6Moz extracted in 2018 alone.

On the Battle Mountain-Cortez trend the major deposits discovered have been Pipeline (23Moz), Cortex Hills (3.2Moz) and Groundrush (6.9Moz).

Oakdale, in addition to Lambarson Canyon and Douglas Canyon, has the Tonopah North ground in Nevada.

Across its three projects, Oakdale has estimated an exploration target between 1.5Moz and 3Moz at 1-2.5g/t gold.

The company’s exploration leader, Geoff Balfe, has more than 20 years in-country experience, and led the team that discovered the 2.3Moz Long Canyon gold deposit, now mined by Nevada Gold Mines, a joint venture between Barrick Gold and Newmont.

Oakdale also owns the Chimu gold plant that processes ore for small-scale miners in southern Peru and has recently acquired the Crown platinum group elements-nickel-copper project located just 8km from the Julimar discovery earlier this year by Chalice Gold Mines (ASX: CHN).