Ora Gold discovers high-grade copper and silver at Government Well

Formerly Thundelarra, Ora Gold (ASX: OAU) has discovered up to 19.5% copper and 275.5 grams per tonne silver from initial rock chip sampling at the Government Well prospect, which is close to the company’s Abbotts gold tenements in Western Australia.

A number of 1.5-2kg rock samples were collected from spoil heaps of three old pits across the prospect, which is 5km north of Abbotts.

Results from the first pit’s spoil heap were 14% copper, 52.1g/t silver and 1.1g/t gold, with the second heap returning 14% copper, 62.5g/t silver and 1.2g/t gold.

The third heap revealed the highest-grade assays of 19.5% copper, 275.5g/t silver and 1.2g/t gold.

Garden Gully gold project

Government Well is on a wholly-owned exploration licence and is part of the company’s Garden Gully gold project that encompass 393 square kilometres about 20km north-west of Meekatharra and includes the recently acquired Abbott ground.

The tenements include two granted mining leases, 21 granted prospecting licences and seven granted exploration licences.

Under its former name of Thundelarra, the company secured the Abbotts ground in late December last year.

Historical exploration at the tenements had unearthed numerous high-grade gold intersections at three main prospects including 4m at 48.9g/t gold from the Mount Vranizan/New Murchison King area, 8m at 13.5g/t gold from Kingswood and 10m at 41.8g/t from Abernethy South.

As part of Ora’s growth strategy, the company is reviewing all available sources to collate as much exploration data as possible to underpin drilling at the project.

Following this strategy, the company is looking at its entire Garden Gully ground holding to firm up mineralisation that may be suitable for a low-cost small-scale operation, which will generate enough cash flow to fund exploration and development of larger deposits.

Ora hopes to make use of nearby infrastructure, with Westgold Resources’ (ASX: WGX) 3.1Mtpa facility and the 300,000tpa Andy Well plant offering potential processing options for its ore.

Following this morning’s news, shares in Ora were up 62.50% to $0.013 by midday.