ECR Minerals (LSE:ECR) continued to ramp up its Australian gold exploration activity on Wednesday with the launch of work at its Henry’s Hill prospect in central Victoria. The £4m business, which was trading at 0.88p as at writing, has secured land access permission for the area, which is based within its Avoca gold project and will start soil geochemistry and field mapping ‘imminently’.

To date, ECR’s geologists have taken seven rock chip samples from the roadside reserve at Henry’s Hill at intervals of approximately 5m in shallow pits. Three of these samples returned 5.1g/t, 1.4g/t, and 1.3g/t gold.

The company hopes that its latest round of work can locate and better define the controls on mineralised shoots at the asset – known locally as Wolfram Hill due to the presence of tungsten-bearing ore. It added that it will also explore the potential for mineralisation to extend undercover to the east and the potential continuation of mineralisation to the west.

Henry’s Hill was mapped in 1950 by a government geologist who identified a series of north-dipping faults dissecting NW-trending sentiments. ECR added that the presence of tungsten is a good indicator of magmatic fluids, something that is prospective for mineralisation.

The work comes at a particularly busy time for ECR, which is now carrying out active exploration or project development activity at four projects across its Avoca Bailiestone, Creswick and Timor licences in Victoria.

Last week, the business rose after unveiling strong gold assays from a rock chip sampling programme at Timor. In total, it collected 84 rock samples from 19 prospects of which more than half were mineralised or anomalous at more than 0.1g/t gold.  

These anomalous samples came from 14 separate opportunities and averaged 1.8g/t gold, which ECR believes to suggest ‘high-level background gold content of the host rocks associated with many of the prospects’. The maximum gold grade encountered was 6.49g/t gold from a host rock slate without any quartz content – something ECR described as ‘remarkable’.

Speaking to MiningMaven on Wednesday, ECR’s chief executive Craig Brown said the organisation’s busy work schedule coincides with a healthy macro backdrop for gold prices:

‘With gold prices hitting record highs in the face of risk-off sentiment over recent weeks, the time is perfect for ECR to be embarking on an exploration campaign across many of its less explored assets,’he said. ‘Against this backdrop, we are excited to continue updating investors on our progress over the coming weeks and months.’

To read our recent report on ECR’s drilling progress in Australia, please click here.

Author: Daniel Flynn

The Author does not hold any position in the stock(s) and/or financial instrument(s) mentioned in the piece.

Catalyst Information Services Ltd, the owner of MiningMaven.com, owns a position in the stock(s) and/or financial instrument(s) mentioned in the piece.

Catalyst Information Services Ltd, the owner of MiningMaven.com, has been paid for the production of this piece by the company or companies mentioned above.

MiningMaven.com and Catalyst Information Services Ltd are not responsible for its content or accuracy and do not share the views of the author. News and research are not recommendations to deal, and investments may fall in value so that you could lose some or all of your investment. Past performance is not an indicator of future performance.

The goldfields in Victoria, South Australia are grabbing the world’s attention for the second time in history.

Upon the first discovery of the precious metal in the 1850s, we saw this desert area become a major international mining centre.

As you can probably imagine, technology has moved on from the hand-dug pits, wooden ladders and dynamite that marked these times.

Today, 3D-mapping, drone-based mineralogical studies, and vast national resources devoted to seismic, geochemical and geochronological surveys are unearthing a deeper, second layer to Victoria’s gold rush.

The Geological Survey of Victoria now estimates that 75 million ounces of high-grade gold is currently sitting under the earth in Australia’s most southern state.

Tax no dampener on gold rush

The scale of finds being made in Victoria are so enormous that the local government is even keen to cash in.

In January 2020, it announced that mines recovering more than 2,500 ounces of gold a year would be subject to a 2.75% tax.

But this has done little to dampen exploration interest.

Not least because the state government has been handing out multi-million-dollar grants to mining companies to get their projects underway.

What the tax development does mean, however, is that the cost of mining an ounce of gold has risen to the point where only the most well-capitalised projects with licenses to boot will succeed.

Enter ECR Minerals (LSE:ECR).

ECR has more than a few strings to its bow in Australia.

The firm’s main area of interest is the Victoria boom.

In Bailieston and Creswick, ECRboasts two enormously exciting and prospective Victoria gold projects.

Bailieston is found in the major orogenic Lachlan Fold Belt, while Creswick sits on the Dimocks Main Shale that extends to Ballarat then miles to the south.

Bailieston’s location within Victoria

Recreating Kirkland Lake’s success

Kirkland Lake Gold (TSX.KL) (NYSE:KL) has become the poster child for success in the current wave of Victoria gold interest.

In the last five years, the firm’s share price has exploded 2,263% thanks to its ownership of the Fosterville Gold Mine.

This has made the company and its investors rich by any standard.

Fosterville is the largest gold producer in Victoria, increasing annual gold production by 315% between 2014 and 2018 while also seeing a 540% jump in gold head grade from 4.6g/t to 24.8g/t, according to the national geological survey.

Operating cash costs of $130 to $150 per oz are laughably small for a world-class deposit, and the spot price of gold hitting new eight-year highs of $1,759 per oz has done nothing to dampen enthusiasm for the precious metal.

ECR’s key tenement of Bailleston sits just 18 miles east of Fosterville and on the same rich seam of gold that has made millionaires of Kirkland’s investors.

Trading volume has started to pick up in ECR since it won licences at the start of 2020.

But with wider equity markets consumed by Covid-19, attention has been diverted away from a potential goldmine.

With the ECR share price trading in a range at around 0.7p, there is huge upside potential to be had.

The Blue Moon prospect at Bailieston, Victoria

Firms flocking to Victoria

ABC Australia reported in May 2020 that more than 80 mineral exploration applications are now underway in Victoria.

And it is the UK and Canada-listed companies that have got there first.

Top names include Power Metal Resources(LSE:POW), Red Rock Resources (LSE:RRR) and Fosterville South (TSX.V:FSX).

The latter of these has this week spun off two of its gold projects at Avoca and Timor in Victoria — bought from none other than ECR — to create a new company, Leviathan Gold, with FSX shareholders receiving shares in Leviathan on a one-to-one basis.

Shares in FSX rose by nearly 30% to an all-time high of CAD$4.35 on the news.

ECR’s sale of Avoca and Timor to Fosterville South means that – as well as an upfront $500,000 to fund its Bailieston and Creswick exploration – ECR will receive $1 for every ounce of gold discovered, up to a maximum of $2,000,000.

Multinational miners are now converging on Victoria, but they have been beaten to the punch to by their nimbler rivals.

As a relatively small AIM-listed exploration, the results here could be a kingmaker for ECR.

Author: Daniel Flynn

The Author does not hold any position in the stock(s) and/or financial instrument(s) mentioned in the piece.

MiningMaven Ltd, the owner of MiningMaven.com, does not own a position in the stock(s) and/or financial instrument(s) mentioned in the piece.

MiningMaven Ltd, the owner of MiningMaven.com, has been paid for the production of this piece by the company or companies mentioned above.

MiningMaven.com and MiningMaven Ltd are not responsible for the article's content or accuracy and do not share the views of the author. News and research are not recommendations to deal, and investments may fall in value so that you could lose some or all of your investment. Past performance is not an indicator of future performance

On Monday, ECR Minerals (LSE:ECR) announced it had started the processing and interpretation of airborne and ground geophysics at its Windidda gold project. The project is 100pc owned by ECR and contains nine exploration licenses across the Yilgarn region in Western Australia.

Windidda is thought to contain Archaean greenstones buried beneath cover, the likes of which host many of Western Australia and the world’s most prolific gold deposits.

This particular gold exploration model has already been tested successfully by Greatland Gold (LSE:GGP) at the Ernest Giles project located 125km east of Windidda.  The nine licence applications submitted by ECR also cover a large proportion of an identified gravity-magnetic trend with known gold prospects along trend to the south.

The analysis of airborne and ground geophysics is a key stage in determining the locations of potential high-profile drill targets. ECR expects these to be amenable to cost-effective air core drilling which will give the explorer greater clarity on the potential gold mineralization on offer.

The Yilgarn Craton is Australia's premier mineral province, attracting more than half of Australia's minerals exploration expenditure, and responsible for two-thirds of all gold and most of the nickel mined in Australia. In fact, Yilgarn contains around 30pc of the world's known gold reserves. Additionally, It is also rich in nickel - holding 20pc of global reserves, - and 80% of the world's tantalum reserves can be found there. Copper, Iron ore, zinc and minor lead reserves have all been identified at Yilgarn Craton.

Craig Brown, Chief Executive Officer commented: “I am pleased to announce that we have launched the next crucial stage in the development of our understanding of scale of the Windidda gold project.

The work being undertaken will greatly assist our understanding of the Project and help us to focus on the higher profile target areas for follow up drilling.

The feedback from this work will be available to the Company shortly and will enable us to advance our operational planning, including the development of key drill targets in our search for high impact gold mineralisation.” 

Author: Stuart Langelaan

The Author does not hold any position in the stock(s) and/or financial instrument(s) mentioned in the piece.
Catalyst Information Services Ltd, the owner of MiningMaven.com, owns a position in the stock(s) and/or financial instrument(s) mentioned in the piece.
Catalyst Information Services Ltd, the owner of MiningMaven.com, has been paid for the production of this piece by the company or companies mentioned above.
MiningMaven.com and Catalyst Information Services Ltd are not responsible for its content or accuracy and do not share the views of the author.  News and research are not recommendations to deal, and investments may fall in value so that you could lose some or all of your investment. Past performance is not an indicator of future performanceure performance

ECR Minerals (LSE:ECR) announced on Tuesday that is has submitted a number of new license applications to potentially add to its existing gold exploration interests in the Victoria region of Australia.

The four new license applications have been submitted by ECR’s 100% owned Australian operating vehicle Mercator Gold Australia Pty Limited. Three of the applications relate to the Bailieston/Moormbool gold project area to augment existing licences and secure available ground south and south and south-west of an application submitted by Newmont Exploration Pty Limited in recent weeks. Newmont’s license application for a large area near to ECRs existing Bailiston gold project bodes well for ECR. A company of that size typically dedicates a great deal of resources to due diligence prior to securing new licenses and ECR extending its own acreage nearby could prove to be a very prudent move.

The other license application has been submitted to add to the ground in the Creswick project area and covers a southern portion of the Dimocks Main Shale (DMS). The DMS sits between two large gold producing areas where it is estimated historically, 15 million ounces of gold has been produced in Victoria, Australia. The Company’s technical team believes they have identified the hard rock source for a significant portion of the aforementioned 15 million ounces of gold production, although it notes further work is required to validate this proposition. 

Craig Brown, Chief Executive Officer of ECR Minerals plc commented: “I am delighted to announce today that the Company has successfully submitted four new applications which materially bolster our strategic ground holding and provide significant additional exploration opportunities for our Australian operations.

The recent application submitted by Newmont Exploration Pty Limited over a large area bordering our Bailieston and Moormbool gold projects is an important ratification of our strategic Australian gold positioning. The presence of Newmont adds weight to the potential prospectivity of the area.

ECR’s exploration work at Bailieston has recently demonstrated gold prospectivity as highlighted by the results of our Bailieston sampling programme announced on 28 September 2018 with gold grades up to 67.4g/t.

At Creswick and as announced on 25 September 2018 our exploration mapping revealed a large gold system, and reflecting our wider exploration work to date, we have taken the opportunity to secure more strategic ground south of our existing Creswick project area.

ECR continues to examine new opportunities and will move to secure additional ground where appropriate.”

Author: Stuart Langelaan

The Author does not hold any position in the stock(s) and/or financial instrument(s) mentioned in the piece.
Catalyst Information Services Ltd, the owner of MiningMaven.com, owns a position in the stock(s) and/or financial instrument(s) mentioned in the piece.
Catalyst Information Services Ltd, the owner of MiningMaven.com, has been paid for the production of this piece by the company or companies mentioned above.
MiningMaven.com and Catalyst Information Services Ltd are not responsible for its content or accuracy and do not share the views of the author.  News and research are not recommendations to deal, and investments may fall in value so that you could lose some or all of your investment. Past performance is not an indicator of future performance

ECR Minerals (LSE:ECR) enjoyed an 8.3pc jump to 0.9p in midday trading on Thursday after announcing strong progress in its drilling campaign at Victoria, Australia.

The business said it has now completed 1,687m of reverse circulation drilling in 17 target holes at its Creswick gold project. Here, it is targeting multiple quartz vein orientations within the Dimocks Main Shale (DMS), a 15km-long hard rock geological feature and the source of much alluvial and deep lead gold. Exploration mapping by the company has identified a large gold system within the DMS.

On Thursday, ECR said its drilling so far has intersected quartz reefs as anticipated. It is now awaiting assay results to determine the extent of gold mineralised shoots in samples.

The firm noted that increasing interest in gold exploration across Victoria has led to a significant increase in the number of samples being processed at local laboratories recently. As a result, it now expects samples to be turned around in two to four weeks rather than one week, as originally predicted.

ECR added that it will provide further updates to the market ‘at the earliest opportunity’. However, the firm added that it expects a flow of assay results over coming weeks because its samples have been sat in laboratories ‘for some time’.

Elsewhere, ECR said it has now completed 774m of RC drilling in six target holes at its Blue Moon gold prospects. Work at Blue Moon, located within ECR’s Bailieston project area, follows up on the evidence of a near-surface mineralised gold system announced last July.

Drilling at the site is ongoing and is targeting extensions of areas where sulphides have been intersected, and gold mineralisation has been identified. The firm is now reviewing its field finding here with a view to drilling further in areas of noted interest.

ECR chief executive Craig Brown said the organisation has now completed 2,461m of drilling in less than a month. All-in-all, it intends to carry out between 4,000-6,000m of RC drilling in Victoria as part of the campaign, which was announced at the end of January.

‘We have successfully encountered a number of host structures that were anticipated and targeted in our drill programmes, and we have panned gold within some of the drill samples,’ added Brown. ‘The company’s approach has been to define drill targets based on historical exploration, field mapping and soil geochemistry with an iterative review programme to extend drilling where target geological structures and gold mineralisation therein is encountered. We await assay data to add to our field observations and will provide further updates to the market when assay information has been received and reviewed by the team.’

Thursday’s update comes at a particularly busy time for ECR. Alongside its work at Creswick and Blue Moon, the firm began an additional drilling campaign at its Black Cat prospect in Bailieston earlier in February. Black Cat is among the high priority targets identified by Terra Resources in 2017 and has not previously been drilled. The candidate is located immediately south of ground recently applied for by resources giant Newmont Exploration.

Alongside its various drilling updates, last month also saw ECR announce that it had submitted applications for the nine exploration licences that make up the Windidda gold project in the Yilgarn region of Australia.  The area has been identified as a gold exploration opportunity because it has the potential to contain Archaean greenstones beneath shallow cover. Archaean greenstones host many of Western Australia and the world’s most prolific gold deposits.

The under-cover greenstone gold exploration model has already been tested successfully by Greatland Gold at its nearby Ernest Giles project.  Furthermore, ECR’s licence applications also cover a large proportion of an identified gravity-magnetic trend with known gold prospects along trend to the south.

Previous exploration at Windidda has only targeted base metal and manganese deposit within cover sequences. ECR expects its target areas to be amenable to aircore drilling. It hopes this will enable it to make a rapid assessment of their potential for gold mineralisation.

Author: Daniel Flynn

The Author does not hold any position in the stock(s) and/or financial instrument(s) mentioned in the piece.

The Author has been paid to produce this piece by the company or companies mentioned above.

Catalyst Information Services Ltd, the owner of MiningMaven.com, owns a position in the stock(s) and/or financial instrument(s) mentioned in the piece.

Catalyst Information Services Ltd, the owner of MiningMaven.com, has been paid for the production of this piece by the company or companies mentioned above.

MiningMaven.com and Catalyst Information Services Ltd are not responsible for its content or accuracy. News and research are not recommendations to deal, and investments may fall in value so that you could lose some or all of your investment. Past performance is not an indicator of future performance.

ECR Minerals (LSE:ECR) was sat at 0.9p during midday trading on Monday after revealing drilling progress in at its Black Cat gold prospect in Victoria, Australia. The business said it has now completed 250m of rotary air blast drilling across ten new holes in the area.

Most of the holes have been drilled in the northern part of the prospect, based within ECR’s Bailieston gold project and immediately south of ground recently applied for by Newmont Exploration. However, three have been completed on the main central workings and one in the southern dyke.

Wide zones of alteration were intersected in seven holes, with quartz veining in another two. Meanwhile, 77 samples have been delivered for laboratory assay testing, with results awaited. ECR said it would provide the results of these tests ‘at the earliest opportunity’, once the company’s technical team has analysed them.

In the meantime, the company will continue to drill the remainder of its planned 450m programme at Black Cat. Black Cat is among the high priority targets identified by Terra Resources in 2017 and has not previously been drilled

ECR chief executive Craig Brown said: ‘As with Creswick and Bailieston Blue Moon, drilling at Black Cat is proceeding well and we are pleased with the work undertaken to date. We look forward to providing further drilling progress updates and the findings following the review of assay results by our technical team.’

The news comes just days after ECR said it has now completed 1,687m of reverse circulation drilling in 17 target holes at its Creswick gold project.  Here, it is targeting multiple quartz vein orientations within the Dimocks Main Shale (DMS) through a 4,000-6,000m drilling programme.  

The DMS a 15km-long hard rock geological feature and the source of much alluvial and deep lead gold. Exploration mapping by the company has identified a large gold system within the structure.

Last week, ECR said its drilling has so far intersected quartz reefs, as anticipated.  It is now awaiting assay results to determine the extent of gold mineralised shoots in samples.

The firm noted that increasing interest in gold exploration across Victoria has led to a significant increase in the number of samples being processed at local laboratories recently.  As a result, it now expects samples to be turned around in two to four weeks rather than one week, as originally predicted.

As in Monday’s Black Cat announcement, ECR added that it would provide further updates to the market ‘at the earliest opportunity’.  However, the firm added that it expects a flow of assay results over coming weeks because its samples have been sat in laboratories ‘for some time’.

Elsewhere, ECR said it has now completed 774m of RC drilling in six target holes at its Blue Moon gold prospects.  Work at Blue Moon, located near Black Cat in Bailieston, follows up on the evidence of a near-surface mineralised gold system announced last July. Drilling at the site is ongoing and is targeting extensions of areas where sulphides have been intersected, and gold mineralisation has been identified. The firm is now reviewing its field finding here with a view to drilling further in areas of noted interest.

Alongside its various drilling updates, January saw ECR announce that it had submitted applications for the nine exploration licences that make up the Windidda gold project in the Yilgarn region of Australia. The area has been identified as a gold exploration opportunity because it has the potential to contain Archaean greenstones beneath shallow cover.

Archaean greenstones host many of Western Australia and the world’s most prolific gold deposits. The under-cover greenstone gold exploration model has already been tested successfully by Greatland Gold at its nearby Ernest Giles project. Furthermore, ECR’s licence applications also cover a large proportion of an identified gravity-magnetic trend with known gold prospects along trend to the south.

Previous exploration at Windidda has only targeted base metal and manganese deposit within cover sequences.  ECR expects its target areas to be amenable to aircore drilling. It hopes this will enable it to make a rapid assessment of their potential for gold mineralisation.

Author: Daniel Flynn

The Author does not hold any position in the stock(s) and/or financial instrument(s) mentioned in the piece.

The Author has been paid to produce this piece by the company or companies mentioned above.

Catalyst Information Services Ltd, the owner of MiningMaven.com, owns a position in the stock(s) and/or financial instrument(s) mentioned in the piece.

Catalyst Information Services Ltd, the owner of MiningMaven.com, has been paid for the production of this piece by the company or companies mentioned above.

MiningMaven.com and Catalyst Information Services Ltd are not responsible for its content or accuracy. News and research are not recommendations to deal, and investments may fall in value so that you could lose some or all of your investment. Past performance is not an indicator of future performance.

ECR Minerals (LSE:ECR) is reviewing commercial options for its gold projects across Victoria, Australia, after receiving third party interest. In a wider update on its exploration progress across the assets, ECR’s chief executive Craig Brown said the firm was “considering potential transactions which may create value for the company and its shareholders”.

“Although there can be no guarantee that any transaction will be progressed, the board are encouraged by the number of opportunities that are available. Further updates will be provided as appropriate,”  he added.

Through its subsidiary Mercator Gold Australia, ECR owns five exploration projects called Avoca, Bailieston, Creswick, Moormbool, and Timor across Central Victoria.

In Thursday’s announcement, the company revealed that it has commissioned Dr Dennis Arne to carry out a lithogeochemical study of chips generated by drilling at Creswick. Arne, who has consulted extensively at the world-renowned Fosterville gold mine in Central Victoria, will work to determine whether quartz veining at Creswick is associated with the presence of ferroan carbonate.

Ferroan carbonate, which is associated with many nearby gold deposits in Victoria, increases as mineralised structures are approached. As such, its presence will be integral to future exploration at Creswick.

Meanwhile, ECR- which was trading close to a one-month high at 0.85p at writing – said it was considering several potential exploration programmes for Bailieston. Among its options is follow-on drilling at the Blue Moon prospect, where drilling last year returned an intercept of 2 metres at 17.87 grams per tonne gold.

Finally, ECR also provided an update on its Windidda gold project in the Yilgarn region of Western Australia, where it is also preparing to explore for gold. The organisation said it has been granted an additional exploration licence at the site but has also withdrawn three applications for permits over areas now considered to be less prospective for gold. One further application remains in process.

With gold recently breaking through the crucial $1,600 an ounce psychological barrier and showing no signs of stopping, it is encouraging to see ECR lay out a clear, transparent plan. After all, junior gold exploration firms are among the most prominent beneficiaries when the safe-haven asset soars in times of uncertainty.

Following the release of Thursday’s update, ECR is sitting above its five, ten, and 100-day exponential moving averages but significantly below the highs of 1.22p at which it sat in June last year. With this in mind, the delivery of strong exploration results or some kind of commercial deal for one of its Victorian projects could provide plenty of upside to its current £3.9 million market cap.

Author: Daniel Flynn

The Author does not hold any position in the stock(s) and/or financial instrument(s) mentioned in the piece.

MiningMaven Ltd, the owner of MiningMaven.com, does not a position in the stock(s) and/or financial instrument(s) mentioned in the piece.

MiningMaven Ltd, the owner of MiningMaven.com, has been paid for the production of this piece by the company or companies mentioned above.

MiningMaven.com and MiningMaven Ltd are not responsible for the article’s content or accuracy and do not share the views of the author. News and research are not recommendations to deal, and investments may fall in value so that you could lose some or all of your investment. Past performance is not an indicator of future performance

On Tuesday, gold explorer and developer ECR Minerals (LSE:ECR) announced it has commenced exploration activities at its Timor Gold Project in the Victorian Goldfields region of Australia. ECR has five projects in the region, with exploration now underway in three of them; Bailieston, Creswick and now Timor. With activity now starting at the latter, this summer holds a great deal of promise for news flow for the company. 

Timor includes some very high-grade gold deposits up to 7 ounces per tonne and ECR says the historical gold mines were not developed fully at depth. This was likely due to technical challenges, but modern techniques could open up the opportunity for renewed, significant production.

Two major fault zones have been identified at Timor; the Shaw-McFarlane Fault Zone (SMFZ) and the Leviathan-Mariners Fault Zone (LMFZ).  Reconnaissance rock dump sampling along the two faults will be undertaken which, depending on the findings, will be followed-up with a grid-based GPS portable X-ray Fluorescence (pXRF) survey for antimony and arsenic as pathfinders to gold mineralisation. The next stage will likely be a programme of Rotary Air Blast (RAB) drilling on identified targets.

ECR says that due to the scale of the deposits present, there is the potential to employ modern open cut and underground mining techniques at both the fault zones.

This month has been a very active period for ECR, particularly in relation to its Creswick Gold Project located to the south of Timor. The firm has significantly ramped-up its sampling and testing programme following the discovery of a nuggetty gold system at the deposit in May. ECR’s team on the ground are systematically testing zones collecting around 640 sample bags of around 30kg each. Sample bags will be initially prioritised for further analysis using metal detection and whole bags positively identifying metal content will be tested extensively. This will provide a much more reliable sample size to determine the extent of the gold nugget distribution across the target area.

Geological reconstruction and interpretation by ECR’s technical team are revealing the complex geology of the Dimocks Main Shale which the firm believes is potentially large enough to host a multi-million ounce gold deposit.

The company is working towards achieving a JORC compliant resource at Creswick and in preparation of this goal, has brought in further relevant experience. The firm has appointed Resource Geologist Kevin Whitehouse of Australian Exploration Field Services Pty Limited, as a consultant to the company and intends on applying his experience and knowledge to the further development of Creswick.

Mr Whitehouse has over 40 years of experience in the natural resources sector with an emphasis on resource modelling, JORC and NI 43-101 reporting, business development, and data management.

MiningMaven caught up with ECR’s Chief Executive Officer, Craig Brown in a podcast interview earlier this week. You can listen to the interview below.

Author: Stuart Langelaan

The Author does not hold a position in the stock(s) and/or financial instrument(s) mentioned in the piece.

The Author has been paid to produce this piece by the company or companies mentioned above.

Catalyst Information Services Ltd, the owner of MiningMaven.com, owns a position in the stock(s) and/or financial instrument(s) mentioned in the piece.

Catalyst Information Services Ltd, the owner of MiningMaven.com, has been paid for the production of this piece by the company or companies mentioned above.

MiningMaven.com and Catalyst Information Services Ltd are not responsible for its content or accuracy. News and research are not recommendations to deal, and investments may fall in value so that you could lose some or all of your investment. Past performance is not an indicator of future performance.

ECR Minerals (LSE:ECR) advanced 5.9pc to 0.9p on Tuesday following the release of an upbeat research report covering its operations. An ‘Initiation of Coverage’ report by New York-based investment bank Hallgarten & Company can be found on ECR’s website by clicking here.

The work, compiled using publicly-available information, concludes by rating ECR as a long position with a 12-month target price of 2.5p per share.

‘With over GBP 1.2mn in the bank as at the end of last year and R&D rebates expected in from the Australian government, the company is well resourced and planned exploration only makes a relatively small dent in funds. This implies little to no dilution in the short term,’ it adds.

Hallgarten acts as a strategic consultant to ECR and is compensated for its services. However, it does not hold stock in the business and does not have the right to in the future.

The release of the report comes off the back of a busy start to the year for ECR. Earlier this month, the company announced the imminent launch of a third drilling programme in Victoria, Australia.  The firm has signed a contract for 450m of rotary air blast (RAB) drilling at the Black Cat gold prospect within its Bailieston gold project area. The work is expected to begin this month.

Black Cat is among the high priority targets identified by geophysical interpretation and targeting studies completed by Terra Resources at Victoria in late 2017.  The prospect is located immediately south of ground recently applied for by resources giant Newmont Exploration.

ECR is also preparing for two further drilling programmes in Victoria.  At the end of last month, the firm announced that it had signed a contract for 4,000-6,000m of reverse circulation drilling in the region.

ECR said its first target is its Creswick Gold Project, where exploration mapping has identified a large gold system within the Dimocks Main Shale (DMS).  The DMS is a 15km-long hard rock geological feature and the source of much alluvial and deep lead gold. Drilling will target multiple quartz vein orientations identified within the DMS.

Once this has completed, drilling will then move to the firm’s Blue Moon gold prospect, which is also located at Bailieston.  Here, ECR will follow-up a significant near-surface gold intercept and evidence of a near-surface mineralised gold system.  The drill target here is a sandstone that has been weathered heavily near the surface. However, ECR believes it may host higher grade gold mineralisation, including disseminated sulphides, at deeper levels.

Alongside its various drilling updates, last month also saw ECR announce that it had submitted applications for the nine exploration licences that make up the Windidda gold project in the Yilgarn region of Australia. The area has been identified as a gold exploration opportunity because it has the potential to contain Archaean greenstones beneath shallow cover.  Archaean greenstones host many of Western Australia and the world’s most prolific gold deposits.

The under-cover greenstone gold exploration model has already been tested successfully by Greatland Gold at its nearby Ernest Giles project.  Furthermore, ECR’s licence applications also cover a large proportion of an identified gravity-magnetic trend with known gold prospects along trend to the south.

Previous exploration at Windidda has only targeted base metal and manganese deposit within cover sequences. ECR expects its target areas to be amenable to aircore drilling.  It hopes this will enable it to make a rapid assessment of their potential for gold mineralisation.

Author: Daniel Flynn

The Author does not hold any position in the stock(s) and/or financial instrument(s) mentioned in the piece.

Catalyst Information Services Ltd, the owner of MiningMaven.com, owns a position in the stock(s) and/or financial instrument(s) mentioned in the piece.

Catalyst Information Services Ltd, the owner of MiningMaven.com, has been paid for the production of this piece by the company or companies mentioned above.

MiningMaven.com and Catalyst Information Services Ltd are not responsible for its content or accuracy and do not share the views of the author.  News and research are not recommendations to deal, and investments may fall in value so that you could lose some or all of your investment. Past performance is not an indicator of future performance.

Shares in ECR Minerals (LSE:ECR) were up 6.5% on Tuesday morning after the firm announced its drilling programme in Victoria will begin this week. ECR is testing a number of gold targets across two 100% owned projects; Creswick and Bailieston.

At the Creswick project, the company is focussing on a large gold system identified within the Dimocks Main Shale (DMS). The DMS sits between two large gold producing areas where it is estimated historically, almost 15 million ounces of gold has been produced in Victoria, Australia. This includes up to 2.6 million ounces Au from the the Creswick/Berry lead system, and up to 11 million ounces Au in the Ballarat area as a whole - the DMS is a significant contributor to the latter.

Only two holes have been drilled to test the DMS within the Creswick licence, however exploration mapping undertaken by ECR’s technical team has revealed a potential link between the large alluvial gold system at Ballarat and Creswick.

Once work at Creswick is complete the drill rig will move to the Blue Moon gold prospect in the Bailieston project. The project is located just 30km from the largest producing gold mine in Victoria, called Fosterville. The Fosterville gold mine produced around 300,000 ounces of gold in 2018. Also, a similar distance away is the Costerfield mine that currently produces 50,000 ounces per annum.

ECR identified the gold system at Blue Moon in July last year. Assay results provided evidence of a significant near surface mineralised system, with large mineralised gold intercepts just 24.2 metres beneath the surface. The company hopes the gold system proves to be comparable to some of the mineralisation exploited at the Fosterville mine, with drilling last year supporting this hypothesis.

Craig Brown, Chief Executive Officer of ECR, commented: “I am delighted to announce the commencement of this dual drill programme at Creswick and Bailieston which is seeking to test multiple gold targets across both projects.

This is an extensive drilling campaign by the Company, and one of the largest we have undertaken in recent times. ECR’s objective is to discover a multi-million ounce gold deposit in Australia and based on the significant technical work undertaken to date, we believe the Creswick and Bailieston licences hold the potential for such a discovery.

All the planned drilling is being undertaken from existing cash resources. The Company will be entitled to claim back a proportion of drilling costs under government grants subsidising drilling. As a result, and assuming on budget operations and cost recovery through grants, the entire programme is estimated to amount to under 20% of existing cash resources.

I would like to thank our technical team and advisers for their hard work in recent weeks to bring this programme together.

We will ensure material developments are released to the market as appropriate during the coming weeks and months.”

Author: Stuart Langelaan

The Author does not hold any position in the stock(s) and/or financial instrument(s) mentioned in the piece.
Catalyst Information Services Ltd, the owner of MiningMaven.com, owns a position in the stock(s) and/or financial instrument(s) mentioned in the piece.
Catalyst Information Services Ltd, the owner of MiningMaven.com, has been paid for the production of this piece by the company or companies mentioned above.
MiningMaven.com and Catalyst Information Services Ltd are not responsible for its content or accuracy and do not share the views of the author.  News and research are not recommendations to deal, and investments may fall in value so that you could lose some or all of your investment. Past performance is not an indicator of future performance

ECR Minerals (LSE:ECR) sat at 0.86p on Wednesday after announcing that it had begun drilling at its Black Cat gold prospect in Victoria, Australia.

The firm has signed a contract for 450m of rotary air blast (RAB) drilling at Black Cat, which is based in its Bailieston gold project. RAB is a low-cost drilling method, which ECR says is particularly well suited to the prospect. The business has mentioned previously that it expects the technique to gather geological information in an ‘efficient and cost-effective manner’.

Black Cat is among the high priority targets identified by geophysical interpretation and targeting studies completed by Terra Resources at Victoria in late 2017. The prospect is located immediately south of ground recently applied for by resources giant Newmont Exploration.

The site is yet to be drilled but contains 220m of historical workings along three known lines of quartz reef. This holds strong gold-in-soil anomalism that indicates unworked reefs could remain at depth. Meanwhile, rock chip sampling of quartz-poor material suggests the potential for disseminated gold, with grades of up to 11.3g/t of the precious metal.

In Wednesday’s update, ECR said composite samples representing 4m downhole lengths will be compiled from the site and assayed for gold. Once these have been received, composites that have returned anomalous gold grades will be re-sampled on a metre-by-metre basis. This second set of samples will then be sent for assay. ECR expects the turnaround time for these assays to be 2-6 weeks.

ECRs chief executive Craig Brown has previously said that Black Cat is located at the ‘epicentre’ of the current gold exploration boom in Victoria. He has highlighted the prospect’s proximity to the successful Fosterville mine, which is owned by Kirkland Lake Gold.

‘This point is underlined by the arrival of Newmont Exploration in the district with an application for ground immediately to the north of the Black Cat prospect,’he said in an update earlier this month. ‘Notwithstanding our active operations we are keen to maintain strict budgetary cost control and it is notable that the use of RAB drilling at Black Cat is a particularly low-cost method of exploration and will enable us to gather geological information in an efficient and cost-effective manner.’

Wednesday’s update has come during a particularly busy period for ECR, with the business also preparing for two further drilling programmes in Victoria. At the end of last month, the firm announced that it had signed a contract for 4,000-6,000m of reverse circulation drilling in the region.

ECR said its first target is its Creswick Gold Project, where exploration mapping has identified a large gold system within the Dimocks Main Shale (DMS). The DMS is a 15km-long hard rock geological feature and the source of much alluvial and deep lead gold. Drilling will target multiple quartz vein orientations identified within the DMS.

Once this has completed, drilling will then move to the firm’s Blue Moon gold prospect, which is also located at Bailieston. Here, ECR will follow-up a significant near-surface gold intercept and evidence of a near-surface mineralised gold system. The drill target here is a sandstone that has been weathered heavily near the surface. However, ECR believes it may host higher grade gold mineralisation, including disseminated sulphides at deeper levels.

Alongside its various drilling updates, last month also saw ECR announce that it had submitted applications for the nine exploration licences that make up the Windidda gold project in the Yilgarn region of Australia. The area has been identified as a gold exploration opportunity because it has the potential to contain Archaean greenstones beneath shallow cover. Archaean greenstones host many of Western Australia and the world’s most prolific gold deposits.

The under-cover greenstone gold exploration model has already been tested successfully by Greatland Gold at its nearby Ernest Giles project. Furthermore, ECR’s licence applications also cover a large proportion of an identified gravity-magnetic trend with known gold prospects along trend to the south.

Previous exploration at Windidda has only targeted base metal and manganese deposit within cover sequences. ECR expects its target areas to be amenable to aircore drilling. It hopes this will enable it to make a rapid assessment of their potential for gold mineralisation.

Author: Daniel Flynn

The Author does not hold any position in the stock(s) and/or financial instrument(s) mentioned in the piece.

Catalyst Information Services Ltd, the owner of MiningMaven.com, owns a position in the stock(s) and/or financial instrument(s) mentioned in the piece.

Catalyst Information Services Ltd, the owner of MiningMaven.com, has been paid for the production of this piece by the company or companies mentioned above.

MiningMaven.com and Catalyst Information Services Ltd are not responsible for its content or accuracy and do not share the views of the author. News and research are not recommendations to deal, and investments may fall in value so that you could lose some or all of your investment. Past performance is not an indicator of future performance.

ECR Minerals (LSE:ECR) announced today it is looking to expand operations into Western Australia having submitted nine new exploration license applications. The licenses cover a package of ground prospective for gold mineralisation across 1600 square Kilometres in the Yilgarn region and will be collectively called the Windidda gold project.

Previous exploration within the project area has targeted base metal and manganese deposits. Licence applications cover a significant proportion of an identified gravity-magnetic trend with known gold prospects along trend in outcropping greenstone to the south (not owned by ECR). These gravity-magnetic anomalies have not been targeted to date.

The under-cover greenstone gold exploration model has been successfully tested by Greatland Gold (LON:GGP) at its Ernest Giles project located approximately 125 kilometres east of the Windidda project.

When granted, the project will complement ECR’s existing extensive gold exploration portfolio in Victoria, Australia.

Map of ECR Minerals’ existing five licences in Victoria, Australia

Things appear to be hotting up in the region, and just recently mining giant Newmont applied for a license for a large area of ground in close proximity to licenses held by ECR.  Via it’s 100% owned operating vehicle Mercator Gold Australia Pty Limited, ECR recently submitted four new licenses in Victoria. Three of the applications relate to the Bailieston/Moormbool gold project area to augment existing licences and secure available ground just to the south of acreage applied for by Newmont.  The fourth license application has been submitted to add to the ground in the Creswick project area.

In December, ECR announced it had secured strategic funding of £680k, stating that, together with existing cash, the company now has sufficient working capital for operational plans until at least Q2 2020.

Craig Brown, Chief Executive Officer of ECR Minerals plc, commented: “I am particularly pleased to announce this strategic move into Western Australia, which, like Victoria, has exceptional gold exploration potential in a first world operating environment.

Greenstone-hosted gold trends in the Western Australian Yilgarn province are very tightly held and access to free ground, when it becomes available, is highly competitive. So, it is very encouraging that ECR has managed to compile a large land position of contiguous tenements covering untested gravity-magnetic anomalies representative of potential greenstone-hosted gold trends.

The funds secured by ECR in the strategic financings of July and December 2018 have enabled us to continue engaging aggressively with potential new initiatives, the Windidda project being one.

We are acquiring new ground in Australia at a time when many explorers and developers are financially weakened by market conditions. This, although unfortunate for the wider resource sector, is presenting ECR with multiple highly attractive options, and we intend to take full advantage.

Our work continues at pace and I look forward to updating our shareholders further with additional new developments in the near term.”

Author: Stuart Langelaan

The Author does not hold any position in the stock(s) and/or financial instrument(s) mentioned in the piece.
Catalyst Information Services Ltd, the owner of MiningMaven.com, owns a position in the stock(s) and/or financial instrument(s) mentioned in the piece.
Catalyst Information Services Ltd, the owner of MiningMaven.com, has been paid for the production of this piece by the company or companies mentioned above.
MiningMaven.com and Catalyst Information Services Ltd are not responsible for its content or accuracy and do not share the views of the author.  News and research are not recommendations to deal, and investments may fall in value so that you could lose some or all of your investment. Past performance is not an indicator of future performance

On Wednesday, ECR Minerals (LSE:ECR) announced a new gold discovery at its Blue Moon deposit in Victoria, Australia. ECR has just completed a follow-up reverse circulation drilling campaign at the deposit which is located within the firm’s Bailieston gold project. Twelve holes were completed for 1,718 metres drilled and significant intersections of gold mineralisation were made in nine of the holes. The results included a standout 2 metres at 17.87 grams per tonne (g/t) of gold within a zone of 15 metres at 3.81 g/t gold from 51 metres. The addition of these positive results to previous exploration at the deposit presents Blue Moon with the status of a new gold discovery.

The highest grades were found in the westerly section where the company hopes to carry out further exploration. ECR will need the consent of the landowners to further pursue the identified system to the west and initial exploration would comprise of surface geochemical sampling first, with the possibility of further drilling to follow. 

The Bailieston gold project is located around 30km east of the Fosterville gold mine which is currently the largest producing gold mine in Victoria, producing around 300,000 ounces of gold per annum. Another active mine, called Costerfield, can be found about the same distance to the south-west – it currently produces around 50,000 ounces of gold per year. The Blue Moon prospect shares analogous properties with the Fosterville mine.

A map showing the location of all drill holes completed at Blue Moon

Craig Brown, Chief Executive Officer of ECR Minerals plc, commented:

“I am pleased to announce the complete results of the RC drilling programme undertaken at the Blue Moon prospect and the new gold discovery we have now confirmed.

Within this follow-up programme, we have reported gold grades of up to 17.87 g/t gold over 2 metres from 57 metres and have significantly increased our knowledge of the geology at Blue Moon. This represents considerable advancement when set against the diamond drilling results reported in July 2018 from the first three holes at Blue Moon, which included a significant intersection of 39 metres at 0.3 g/t gold from 24.2 metres.

With the knowledge gained from the RC programme we believe that the gold mineralisation intensifies further west and now have a clear action plan to follow the system. We are excited by the findings and will continue our work at Blue Moon and other prospects in the Bailieston project area, with our strategic objective remaining a multi-million ounce gold discovery.”

Author: Stuart Langelaan

The Author does not hold any position in the stock(s) and/or financial instrument(s) mentioned in the piece.

The Author has been paid to produce this piece by the company or companies mentioned above.

Catalyst Information Services Ltd, the owner of MiningMaven.com, owns a position in the stock(s) and/or financial instrument(s) mentioned in the piece.

Catalyst Information Services Ltd, the owner of MiningMaven.com, has been paid for the production of this piece by the company or companies mentioned above.

ECR Minerals (LON: ECR) said drilling is now underway at two of its Australian projects, an excellent step forward for the company in the lucrative Victoria Goldfields.

The Victoria Goldfields, where the two projects are located, also hosts Kirkland Lake Gold’s (NYSE: KL | TSE: KL | ASX: KLA) world-famous Fosterville mine.

Both gold projects, Bailieston and Creswick, are wholly owned by ECR through Australian subsidiary Mercator Gold Australia.

At Bailieston, successful drilling is ongoing and the firm is looking forward to presenting assay results from recent holes, especially after an initial geological review of the drill core.

So far, hole BH3DD005 has targeted Bailieston’s Maori Reef, while holes BH3DD006 and BH3DD007 “targeted a hypothesised central anticline”, with initial geological interpretation suggesting the anticline is present and “represents a favourable target for hosting gold mineralisation”.

Another hole, BH3DD006, was drilled in order to test the Dan Genders Reef.

Moreover, soil sampling from Bailieston’s HR3 area “has identified very high gold grades in soils”, chief executive Craig Brown noted, lending yet more support to ECR’s drill targeting and geological modelling.

Laboratory results from analysing 229 soil samples from the central and eastern part of HR3 include values as high at 3.75 parts per million. Results right now are being plotted and analysed for comparison to the results of portable X-ray fluorescence analysis.

These results will aid ECR in identifying potential vein extensions, as well as possible undiscovered veins running parallel to Bailieston’s known reef systems.

Meanwhile, at Creswick, previous exploration drilling targeted gold mineralisation associated with quartz veins within the Dimocks Main Shale – a hard-rock alluvial and deep lead gold source.

Individual samples from prior drilling of around 300 metres of the Dimocks Main Shal “returned assays as high as 80.97 g/t gold over one metre”.

Now, MGA has contracted for at least 1,200 metres of diamond drilling at Creswick, with the first of around ten holes already underway.

Compared to the previous drilling, drill sites for this latest programme are located approximately 2.2 kilometres south along the Dimocks Main Shale-trend.

Brown said the firm was “pleased”that drilling was now underway at two Victoria projects, and that ECR looked forward to announcing the latest assay results in due course.

Brown added that the company’s “strong cash position” is what allowed it “to expand drilling operations” and start drilling at Creswick through external contractors.

“We are very excited by the potential scale of the opportunity at Creswick and a larger scale drill programme at the project is something we have been eager to undertake,” Brown said.

Author: Anna Farley

The Author does not hold any position in the stock(s) and/or financial instrument(s) mentioned in the piece.

MiningMaven Ltd, the owner of MiningMaven.com, does not own a position in the stock(s) and/or financial instrument(s) mentioned in the piece.

MiningMaven Ltd, the owner of MiningMaven.com, has not been paid for the production of this piece by the company or companies mentioned above.

MiningMaven.com and MiningMaven Ltd are not responsible for the article's content or accuracy and do not share the views of the author. News and research are not recommendations to deal, and investments may fall in value so that you could lose some or all of your investment. Past performance is not an indicator of future performance

Gold-focused explorer and developer, ECR Minerals (LSE:ECR) edged up 2.5pc to 1.03p on Monday, after announcing the appointment of Resource Geologist, Keith Whitehouse. This follows an update on the firm’s Creswick Gold Project last Friday in which ECR gave further details on its elevated sampling and testing programme.

ECR’s technical team believes that the Dimocks Main Shale (DMS) at the Creswick Gold Project is potentially large enough to host a multi-million-ounce gold deposit. The team recently took advice from laboratories and has devised a plan to systematically test zones collecting around 640 sample bags of around 30kg each. The ramp-up and prioritising of sampling at Creswick follow the discovery of a nuggetty gold system at the deposit in May. Sample bags will be initially prioritised for further analysis using metal detection and whole bags positively identifying metal content will be tested extensively. This will provide a much more reliable sample size to determine the extent of the gold nugget distribution across the target area.

In Friday’s announcement, ECR said its technical team and advisers have now been mobilised to the site to review the prospective areas, conduct certain additional exploration work and further plan for the development of the project.

A large aircraft hangar and house at Nagambie has been rented by ECR for the storage and preparation of bulk samples, and the company has also purchased large laboratory equipment.

Geological reconstruction and interpretation by the firm’s technical team are revealing the complex geology of the Dimocks Main Shale. The deposit is folded and faulted with significant widths of quartz zones extending over 60 metres and beyond the 25 metres Dimocks Main Shale. 

ECR’s Chief Executive Officer, Craig Brown commented: “Given the recent results and the potentially Company transformational nature of Creswick, I was very pleased with my site visit and our positive progress on all fronts. Discussions with our advisors have demonstrated the significant potential of the project and we will continue to move our work programmes forward as aggressively as possible.

Subject to the ongoing results of our work, and assuming positive exploration outcomes, we are seeking to rapidly advance Creswick toward a JORC compliant resource. We have been thorough in our planning, including the development of the sample testing programme, and this should provide a solid foundation for the further advancement of Creswick.

I believe that this project at Creswick subject to further exploration and positive drill results will add significant value for shareholders. I would like to thank our team and partners for all their work and progression on this major project. I look forward to providing further project updates as they become available for our shareholders.”

Cross-section of the Dimocks Main Shale

Resource Modelling Experience

ECR is hoping to achieve a JORC compliant resource at the Creswick Gold Project, and in preparation of this goal, has brought in further relevant experience to the team. The firm has appointed Resource Geologist Kevin Whitehouse of Australian Exploration Field Services Pty Limited, as a consultant to the company and intends on applying his experience and knowledge to the further development of Creswick.

Mr Whitehouse has over 40 years of experience in the natural resources sector with an emphasis on resource modelling, JORC and NI 43-101 reporting, business development, and data management.

Craig Brown said: “I am delighted to announce the appointment of Keith Whitehouse as an adviser to the Company. Keith’s knowledge and experience will be applied immediately with regard to our ongoing work at Creswick, where we are seeking to quantify gold mineralisation in a manner that, if applicable, can be embodied within a JORC compliant resource.

In addition, Keith’s skills will be of further value in respect of other projects in our Victorian portfolio, especially those where knowledge and experience relevant to resource modelling in a nuggetty environment are required.”

Author: Stuart Langelaan

The Author does not hold a position in the stock(s) and/or financial instrument(s) mentioned in the piece.

The Author has been paid to produce this piece by the company or companies mentioned above.

Catalyst Information Services Ltd, the owner of MiningMaven.com, owns a position in the stock(s) and/or financial instrument(s) mentioned in the piece.

Catalyst Information Services Ltd, the owner of MiningMaven.com, has been paid for the production of this piece by the company or companies mentioned above.

MiningMaven.com and Catalyst Information Services Ltd are not responsible for its content or accuracy. News and research are not recommendations to deal, and investments may fall in value so that you could lose some or all of your investment. Past performance is not an indicator of future performance.

ECR Minerals(LSE:ECR) has raised £500,000 in a 100 million share equity placing at 0.5p per share to ensure it is fully funded for the rest of 2020. Chief executive Craig Brown said the cash proceeds would be used to support its gold exploration projects in the Victoria region of Australia. The placing was arranged by the company’s broker SI Capital Ltd.

For each new share, investors will receive a warrant which can be exercised for one new ordinary share in ECR Minerals at a price of 1p, for up to 24 months from the date of admission. If all these warrants were exercised, it would generate an additional £1 million for the company. 

ECR’s main focus is on gold projects through its wholly-owned Australian subsidiary, Mercator Gold Australia.  These include Creswick and Bailieston in central Victoria and the Windidda project in Yilgarn, western Australia.

On the placing, Brown said: “We are pleased by the confidence in ECR shown by investors in the Placing. The Company is now in a strong position to implement our strategy, which centres on our exciting portfolio of gold projects in Victoria, Australia. Discussions with third parties regarding certain of these projects are continuing, and we hope to be in a position to update the market shortly.”

Physical gold is in very short supply at present. As investors digest the wider volatility in equity markets, gold miners with the full backing of their shareholders will be best placed to take advantage of strong commodity prices. 

The spot price of gold is now approaching a retest of the seven-year highs seen in mid-March. In morning trading on 6 April the precious metal was trading at $1,632/oz.

ECR’s placing comes just days after it announced a “number of expressions of interest” in its portfolio of Australia assets amid the outbreak of Covid-19. In its 2019 results, the firm said gold prices have traded at “record levels” in Australia dollar terms this year as investors have swarmed to the safe-haven asset en-masse in response to the pandemic.

As a result, there is currently “a very high level of interest” in gold exploration and mining in Australia, according to ECR, including in Victoria and Western Australia where the bulk of the firm’s assets are based. “A number of expressions of interest in ECR’s projects have been received from third parties,” said Brown at the time, adding that the firm is also considering potential transactions that may create shareholder value.

The company’s results also saw it detail the operational progress made across its portfolio of assets during the results period and beyond. The centre of the group’s operations over the year and subsequently was Victoria, where it completed significant exploration programmes in the Bailieston and Creswick gold project areas.

The critical area of focus at Bailieston has been the Blue Moon prospect, where reverse circulation drilling returned an intercept of 2 metres at 17.87 g/t gold within a zone of 15 metres at 3.81 g/t gold from 51 metres in hole BBM007. This confirmed the prospect as a new gold discovery.

Meanwhile, at Creswick, an RC drilling programme identified more quartz than anticipated, leading ECR’s geologist to surmise that the project contained an “extreme nuggety distribution of gold”. To assess the significance of this observation, the company devised a new testing program using gravity and electrostatic concentration on full bags of drill cuttings.

“In nuggety gold systems, increasing sample size increases the chance of nuggets being captured in the sample, and thus being appreciated as part of the gold endowment of the system,” said ECR.

Using this new approach, ECR has confirmed the presence of nuggety gold mineralisation at Creswick in a structure called the Dimocks main Shale. Some of this is thought to be very high grade.

Meanwhile, another critical area of focus for the firm has been the Windidda gold project in Western Australia, where it has been granted five licences. These cover areas potentially prospective for komatiite-hosted nickel-copper-PGE mineralisation, as well as orogenic gold.

Post-financial year-end, ECR also sold off its wholly-owned Argentine subsidiary Ochre Mining, which holds the SLM gold project in La Rioja. The money raised has enabled the company to focus on its gold operations, and it retains an NSR royalty of up to 2% over the project to a maximum of $2.7 million in respect of future production.

Author: Daniel Flynn

The Author does not hold any position in the stock(s) and/or financial instrument(s) mentioned in the piece.

MiningMaven Ltd, the owner of MiningMaven.com, does not a position in the stock(s) and/or financial instrument(s) mentioned in the piece.

MiningMaven Ltd, the owner of MiningMaven.com, has been paid for the production of this piece by the company or companies mentioned above.

MiningMaven.com and MiningMaven Ltd are not responsible for the article’s content or accuracy and do not share the views of the author. News and research are not recommendations to deal, and investments may fall in value so that you could lose some or all of your investment. Past performance is not an indicator of future performance

On Wednesday, ECR Minerals (LSE:ECR) announced details of a follow-on gold nugget test programme at its Creswick project. The precious metals exploration and development firm reported the presence of a nuggetty gold system at the deposit in May, highlighting the significance of the find. The company drilled 17 holes at Creswick within the Dimocks Main Shale extracting a 30kg bag of samples. As per industry practices, a 2kg sample was assayed, but ECR explains that assay sample results could be understated as was demonstrated in the test. The assay from the 2 kg sample reported gold of 1.88g/t whereas the 30kg sample test showed the bag actually contained a substantially higher 11.8g/t of gold.

The company’s technical team has taken advice from laboratories and has devised a plan to systematically test zones in and around 640 sample bags of around 30kg each. Bags will be initially prioritised for further analysis using metal detection and whole bags positively identifying metal content will be tested fully. This will provide a much more reliable sample size to determine the extent of gold nugget distribution across the target area.

This much more extensive laboratory analysis will include a number of steps such as sieving, detecting, gold particle analysis, testing gravity concentration and assaying to determine the size distribution and grade of the coarse and fine gold within each sample.

The firm believes the Dimocks Main Shale is large enough to potentially host a multi-million-ounce gold deposit at Creswick and as such has chosen to prioritise its resources to the project. ECR has said it will provide updates to the market as testing progresses, and will continue to develop its other gold projects in parallel with Creswick.

 Craig Brown, Chief Executive Officer commented: “I am extremely pleased with the professionalism of the Company’s technical team in devising the structured approach to bag testing that has been developed. Creswick is a unique project and the assessment of in-situ gold mineralisation requires bespoke project management and technical application.

I am delighted that our first metal detecting of bags has already highlighted metal content, which we expect is reflective of nugget gold mineralisation as samples from depth are unlikely to contain other detectable metals.

Our internal modelling suggests the Dimocks Main Shale is large enough to potentially host a multi-million ounce gold deposit at Creswick and therefore ECR are allocating resources to this project in a prioritised manner whilst continuing to develop our other Australian gold projects in parallel.”

Author: Stuart Langelaan

The Author does not hold a position in the stock(s) and/or financial instrument(s) mentioned in the piece.

The Author has been paid to produce this piece by the company or companies mentioned above.

Catalyst Information Services Ltd, the owner of MiningMaven.com, owns a position in the stock(s) and/or financial instrument(s) mentioned in the piece.

Catalyst Information Services Ltd, the owner of MiningMaven.com, has been paid for the production of this piece by the company or companies mentioned above.

MiningMaven.com and Catalyst Information Services Ltd are not responsible for its content or accuracy. News and research are not recommendations to deal, and investments may fall in value so that you could lose some or all of your investment. Past performance is not an indicator of future performance.

Gold explorer and developer ECR Minerals (LSE: ECR) is ready to carry out substantial new drilling at its highly prospective Victoria Goldfields prospects in Australia.

The company’s 100%-owned ‘Midas’ drill rig has now arrived at the inaugural Byron drill site in the HR3 area of the company’s Bailieston project. 

ECR’s planned drill campaign is fully funded from the company’s existing £2.95 million cash resources. 

Chief executive Craig Brown said:

“This is the first of numerous planned drill locations which will be coordinated from ECR’s central exploration facility compound in the Victoria Goldfields.

“Our resources give us considerable forward cash runway for operational and corporate activities.”

Brown added that investors could now expect regular drilling updates along with results from assay testing of drill samples.

ECR’s wholly-owned Australian subsidiary Mercator Gold Australia Pty (MGA) has built a strategic portfolio totalling 1,175km² in the historic Goldfields area. The region as a whole is undergoing a second gold rush with smallcap miners now flocking to reports of hefty gold production under cover and at depth. 

Projects in the areas of Bailieston and Creswick form the two most prospective elements of the ECR Victoria gold exploration. The westernmost part of ECR’s Bailieston licences are just 30km east of Canadian giant Kirkland Lake Gold’s Fosterville mine. 

Bailieston produced significant results from reverse circulation drilling in 2019, with drilling at the Blue Moon prospect returning an intercept of 2m at 17.87g/t gold within a zone of 15m at 3.81g/t gold. 

And only a small proportion of Creswick has been explored to date: MGA’s tenement at the project covers around 7km of the Dimrocks Main Shale Trend

MGA is keen to follow up on previous exciting drilling results at Creswick. 

Results from reverse circulation drilling here has already confirmed the presence of very high grade “nuggety” gold mineralisation in the Dimrocks Main Shale, including 80.97 g/t gold from a 1 metre interval.

Drill sites have been determined and approval has been received from the relevant government authorities. In Q4 2020, MGA completed a soil geochemistry survey of the Jackass Reef prospect at Creswick, the results of which will be of significant value for drill targeting, ECR said.

Author: Mark Sheridan

The Author does not hold any position in the stock(s) and/or financial instrument(s) mentioned in the piece.

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MiningMaven.com and MiningMaven Ltd are not responsible for the article's content or accuracy and do not share the views of the author. News and research are not recommendations to deal, and investments may fall in value so that you could lose some or all of your investment. Past performance is not an indicator of future performance

ECR Minerals (LSE:ECR) has uploaded a presentation to its website containing in-depth information about its latest gold project in Australia.

The slides cover various aspects of the Windidda gold project, including its location, regional geology, gravity & magnetics, and its exploration potential. The presentation can be accessed on ECR’s websiteby clicking here or can be downloaded in PowerPoint formatby clicking here.

Windidda spans c.1,600km2 of ground across nine exploration licences in the Yilgarn region of Western Australia. ECR submitted applications for the permits in early January to complement its existing gold exploration portfolio in Victoria, Australia.

The area has been identified as a gold exploration opportunity because it has the potential to contain Archaean greenstones beneath shallow cover. Archaean greenstones host many of Western Australia and the world’s most prolific gold deposits.

The under-cover greenstone gold exploration model has already been tested successfully by Greatland Gold at its nearby Ernest Giles project. Furthermore, ECR’s licence applications also cover a large proportion of an identified gravity-magnetic trend with known gold prospects along trend to the south.

Previous exploration at Windidda has only targeted base metal and manganese deposit within cover sequences. ECR expects its target areas to be amenable to aircore drilling. It hopes this will enable it to make a rapid assessment of their potential for gold mineralisation.

Craig Brown, chief executive at ECR Minerals, said: ‘ECR Minerals is building its strategic gold exploration portfolio at what the directors believe is a fascinating time in the gold industry, underlined by the acquisition of Goldcorp Inc. by Newmont Mining Corp. announced this week.

‘Larger companies within the sector are often in search of new gold discoveries to replace reserves as they are mined, potentially putting proactive junior gold explorers in a prime position should they be able to identify highly prospective territory, achieve a discovery and/or build strategic knowledge through exploration.

‘ECR has already identified a large, but early stage, gold system at its Creswick project in Victoria, Australia and is working to advance that project as rapidly as possible. The Windidda project diversifies ECR’s interests into Western Australia and the highly prospective Yilgarn Craton, which the directors believe is amply demonstrated by the presentation linked above. Following the financings completed in 2018, ECR is able to move forward confidently with new initiatives like the Windidda gold project.’

Please click here to read our recent interview with Brown about the potential on offer at ECR’s Creswick project.

Author: Daniel Flynn

The Author does not hold any position in the stock(s) and/or financial instrument(s) mentioned in the piece.
Catalyst Information Services Ltd, the owner of MiningMaven.com, owns a position in the stock(s) and/or financial instrument(s) mentioned in the piece.
Catalyst Information Services Ltd, the owner of MiningMaven.com, has been paid for the production of this piece by the company or companies mentioned above.
MiningMaven.com and Catalyst Information Services Ltd are not responsible for its content or accuracy and do not share the views of the author.  News and research are not recommendations to deal, and investments may fall in value so that you could lose some or all of your investment. Past performance is not an indicator of future performanceure performance

ECR Minerals (LSE:ECR) was trading at 0.7p a share on Thursday after revealing that its cash balance has been boosted by a large research and development refund. The Australia-focused mining company has received AUD 555,212 (approximately £295,515) for its research into turbidite-hosted gold deposits in Victoria.

ECR is the 100% owner of five exploration projects in the state called Avoca, Bailieston, Creswick, Moormbool, and Timor. Over the past year, it has completed a large amount of drilling across these areas, recent confirming the presence of nuggety gold mineralisation at Creswick.

Elsewhere, ECR said that – as at 30 September last year – it had carried forward corporate income tax losses of AUD 66,341,687 (approximately £35.3 million). The organisation expects this figure to be available for offset against taxable gains in the future.

Craig Brown, ECR’s chief executive officer, said the refund provides a “significant boost” to the firm’s cash position at a strong time for gold prices. Gold prices continue to remain high after surging 18% throughout 2019, driven forward by trade tensions between the US and China, buying from central banks, and an increase in investment demand.

“The gold price remains strong and we believe there is considerable and growing interest in respect of Australian gold exploration, and we have also observed strong interest in the Victorian goldfields where we have an active exploration portfolio,” added Brown. “Overall, the board believes the additional cash creates exciting opportunities for an entrepreneurial gold-focused company like ECR.”

Thursday’s news signalled the end of a quiet period for ECR, whose last release came in November. The company revealed that final “full bag” analysis had confirmed that “very high grade” nuggety gold mineralisation is present in a formation called the Dimocks Main Shale at Creswick, Brown said he believes there to be “significant upside” at the project in light of the results, adding that the company is now considering “how best to build on the results obtained”.

Elsewhere, ECR is the owner of the Windidda gold project in the Yilgarn region of western Australia. Here, the firm is searching for Archaean greenstones buried beneath cover, which it believes to present an excellent gold exploration opportunity. In October, a study by Western Geophysics indicated “feasible drill targets” at the project.

Author: Daniel Flynn

The Author does not hold any position in the stock(s) and/or financial instrument(s) mentioned in the piece.

MiningMaven Ltd, the owner of MiningMaven.com, does not a position in the stock(s) and/or financial instrument(s) mentioned in the piece.

MiningMaven Ltd, the owner of MiningMaven.com, has been paid for the production of this piece by the company or companies mentioned above.

MiningMaven.com and MiningMaven Ltd are not responsible for the article’s content or accuracy and do not share the views of the author. News and research are not recommendations to deal, and investments may fall in value so that you could lose some or all of your investment. Past performance is not an indicator of future performance

ECR minerals (LSE:ECR) announced it has secured strategic funding of £680k on Monday. The company states that together with existing cash, ECR now has sufficient working capital for operational plans until at least Q2 2020.

In addition to the new shares being issued at 0.70p, participants in the fundraise will also receive a warrant for each share subscribed, exercisable at 1.125p within two years.  Directors, David Tang and Craig Brown have also subscribed for a total of £20k on the same terms.

Chief Executive Officer, Craig Brown, commented: “I am pleased to announce this additional financing which adds to the money raised in July and considerably bolsters our balance sheet working capital at a key time for the ECR business.Market conditions in the resource sector have been challenging in the latter half of 2018, for companies of our size and we believe the ability to source additional financing at this time is a validation of our business model and plans. ECR is in a financially robust position and can now push ahead with exploration and development across the business. In this regard ECR has a portfolio of projects in Australia which have yielded highly positive exploration results during our 2018 work programmes and deserve a proactive exploration approach.”

The funds raised will partly be used to expand exploration at the company’s gold projects in Victoria, Australia. Things appear to be hotting up in the region, and just recently mining giant Newmont applied for a license for a large area of ground in close proximity to licenses held by ECR. In fact, ECR is looking to increase its territory in the vicinity via its 100% owned operating vehicle Mercator Gold Australia Pty Limited. Earlier this month, Mercator submitted three new license applications to augment existing licenses related to the Bailieston/Moormbool gold project area just south and southwest of Newmont’s potential license. A fourth license application has been submitted to add to the ground in the Creswick project area that sits between two large gold producing areas.

In its update Monday, ECR detailed some of the activities the placing will fund which include 4,000 metres of reverse circulation drilling at Blue Moon, Creswick and Black Cat prospects and 1,400 metres of scout drilling at the Avoca prospect.

Brown adds: “We believe our gold interests in Victoria region in Australia have been validated by the large licence application submitted by Newmont Mining Pty Limited adjacent to our Bailieston and Moormbool projects. Moreover work at our Creswick project has revealed, through exploration mapping, a large gold system with exciting potential. 

We have added additional ground with complementary licence applications recently announced, and we have more opportunities for new licences and new corporate activity to further bolster our business. The extent of our new opportunity pipeline is such that we are taking time to carefully select the primary opportunities.

Notwithstanding challenging conditions of late and what we perceive to be a general retrenchment in activity across the resource sector due to funding limitations, shareholders in ECR can be assured that the Company is well financed and operationally active, and we look forward to updating shareholders in due course on our activities.”

Author: Stuart Langelaan

The Author does not hold any position in the stock(s) and/or financial instrument(s) mentioned in the piece.
Catalyst Information Services Ltd, the owner of MiningMaven.com, owns a position in the stock(s) and/or financial instrument(s) mentioned in the piece.
Catalyst Information Services Ltd, the owner of MiningMaven.com, has been paid for the production of this piece by the company or companies mentioned above.
MiningMaven.com and Catalyst Information Services Ltd are not responsible for its content or accuracy and do not share the views of the author.  News and research are not recommendations to deal, and investments may fall in value so that you could lose some or all of your investment. Past performance is not an indicator of future performance

ECR Minerals (LSE:ECR) rose by 7.2pc to 0.99p on Tuesday after unveiling ‘remarkable’ gold assays at its Timor project in Victoria, Australia.

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