Venus Metals advances Youanmi gold revival story as drilling extends Grace strike

Joint venture partners Venus Metals Corporation (ASX: VMC) and Rox Resources (ASX: RXL) are reporting a three-pronged exploration strategy as they work to revive the historic Youanmi mine area in Western Australia.

This latest development involves the Grace prospect within the OYG joint venture at Youanmi, in which Venus holds 30% and Rox has now earned 70%.

To date, a mineralised corridor has been delineated within the Youanmi granite up to 1.5km to the north of historical mine infrastructure. This corridor has variable mineralisation over a strike length of 2.5km.

Youanmi (located 480km to the north-east of Perth) is one of the last big WA gold mines to be re-examined for production under today’s high gold prices.

This latest report included results from hole RXRC292, which returned 2m at 12.31 grams per tonne gold from 195m, as well as 4m at 5.01gt/ gold from 173m. These were within an “impressive” broader mineralised zone of 49m — comprising 25m at 2.39g/t gold from 173m, the other 24m at 1.04g/t gold from 145m.

Venus and Rox have four separate joint ventures in the project area. Apart from OYG, there is the Youanmi joint venture (50% each), VMC joint venture (50% each) and Currans Find (45% each).

The three-pronged advance begins with the two companies reporting that granite-hosted gold mineralisation along 2.5km of strike in the Grace structural corridor.

In addition, they have also confirmed a new shallow zone of mineralisation at Grace, as well as — during drilling at depth — encountered the widest zone of mineralisation to date.

Potential for significant tonnages

Rox managing director Alex Passmore said Grace is continuing to deliver “impressive, high-grade results”.

“I am particularly excited by the extent of mineralisation encountered in drill hole RXRC292 which demonstrates not only does Grace carry very high gold grades — with 49m of mineralisation intersected — there is potential for significant tonnages to be delineated,” he added.

At Grace North, two samples returned: 1m at 63.68g/t gold to end of hole, and 3m at 10.27g/t gold.

The Youanmi mining centre has produced an estimated 667,000oz of gold (at an average 5.47g/t) since its discovery in 1901.

It has been mined over three periods: 1908-21, 1937-42 and 1987-97. The project is located in the Youanmi Greenstone Belt.

Parallel structures are to be tested over the coming months with potential to extend mineralisation further to the north-east.

The reverse circulation drilling plan calls for 126 holes in total, followed by diamond drilling to better characterise the mineralisation. The scope of the diamond program has been expanded to include targeting Grace mineralisation at depth.

VMC JV

Today’s positive news regarding Grace, follows high-grade assays at the Sovereign prospect within the VMC JV.

Venus reported numerous mineralised intersections from recent reverse circulation drilling at the project.

Better results were 10m at 3.64g/t gold from 79m, including 2m at 10.64g/t gold from 82m; and 4m at 2.68g/t gold from 116m, including 1m at 5.43g/t gold from 118m.

Other results were 7m at 3.97g/t gold from 59m, including 1m at 8.19g/t gold from 64m; 4m at 1.86g/t gold from 18m; and 3m at 1.98g/t gold from 24m.