Southern Cross Gold shaping up as promising gold-antimony play
Freehold ownership locks-in surface access for Southern Cross Gold at Sunday Creek.
In its first quarter as a stand-alone listed company, Victoria explorer Southern Cross Gold (ASX: SXG) has advanced its gold drilling and underlines that it could also become the only Australian-owned producer of the critical metal, antimony.
Southern Cross was spun-out of Toronto-listed Mawson Gold (TSX: MAW) last year so the Canadian company could focus on its flagship Rajapalot gold-cobalt project in Finland, which hosts an inferred resource of 1.04 million ounces at 3 grams per tonne gold equivalent.
Antimony is considered by the US Department of Defence to be a critical metal as it is needed to produce everything from armour-piercing bullets and explosives to nuclear weapons as well as sundry other military equipment, such as night vision goggles.
China now dominates antimony supply, producing 145,000t per annum. The second largest producer is Canada, with 7,000tpa.
‘Spectacularly wide’ intercepts in recent drilling
In its latest quarterly report Southern Cross highlights gold ad antimony exploration progress at its Sunday Creek project in Victoria. The company is reporting for the three months to 31 May.
The spin-out company listed on the ASX in mid-May after raising $9.1 million in an initial public offering.
Wide gold and antimony intercepts are set out in its first quarterly report.
These include what the company describes as “spectacularly wide” gold-antimony intersection — 119m at 3.9g/t gold equivalent, from 106.8m down hole.
This hole included eight higher-grade intervals, including 119.5g/t and 30g/t.
The gold equivalence formula used by nearby Canadian gold-antimony miner Mandalay Resources (TSX: MND) was calculated using recoveries achieved at the Costerfield mine using a gold price of US$1,700/oz, and an antimony price of US$8,500/t.
Southern Cross considers it is appropriate to use the same equivalence formula. Costerfield is located 54km northwest of Sunday Creek.
Drilling continues down to 400m for gold
During the May quarter, Southern Cross, continued drilling with the objective of defining gold mineralisation down to 400m.
“The company considers Sunday Creek as one of the better new exploration discoveries to come out of Victoria in recent times,” the quarterly notes.
Thirteen holes returned high grades of gold and antimony, with mineralisation remaining open and along strike.
Historically ore from Sunday Creek was treated on site or shipped to the Costerfield mine for processing.
Costerfield is rated as one of the top five mines in the world for antimony production.