Southern Cross Gold fast-tracks drilling at Sunday Creek with additional rig

Southern Cross Gold (ASX: SXG) has fast-tracked exploration at its Sunday Creek gold-antimony project in Victoria, with two drill rigs now active on-site.

There are now two rigs with two drill crews active at Sunday Creek – targeting the Rising Sun and Apollo shoots. A third crew will be mobilised to site later this month.

The company says this will effectively boost its drill capacity by 250%.

Southern Cross managing director Michael Hudson said the company was “extremely happy” to have a second rig on-site at the project as well as two further drill crews.

“We have already drilled over 13,500m at Sunday Creek in less than two years and now more metres will be drilled faster to continue to delineate gold-antimony mineralisation, with results delivered more often.”

Assays are pending from holes completed at Apollo, Rising Sun and Gladys.

Mr Hudson said the company was especially looking forward to assays from two prioritised holes in the main axis of the Apollo shoot.

Sunday Creek gold-antimony project

Sunday Creek is an epizonal-style gold project just 60km north of Melbourne.

The project comprises 19,365 hectares of granted tenements and Southern Cross also owns a further 132.64ha of freehold land.

To-date, Southern Cross has drilled 1km of strike at the project to a 400m vertical depth. An extra 10km of strike remains untested.

Notable intercepts from the drilling at Sunday Creek comprise 119.2m at 3.9 grams per tonne gold equivalent, including 64m at 3g/t gold equivalent and 39m at 638g/t gold equivalent.

While gold is renowned for being a “safe haven” asset – particularly amid economic volatility and downturns, the lesser-known antimony is also a critical mineral.

Antimony alloys with lead and tin to improve solders, bullets, bearing and batteries.

Similar to other critical minerals, China and Russia dominate global production – accounting for a combined 82% of global supply.

Geology and upside

Southern Cross has unveiled a two-part video series covering the geology and upside at Sunday Creek.

The company’s technical adviser Dr Nick Cook discusses the Sunday Creek geology, 3D modelling and the project’s relationship to other Victorian gold deposits.

“Mr Cook has the ability to simplify complex 3D geology and has been working on publishing information on Victorian gold deposits since the late 1980s,” Mr Hudson said.