Aureka kicks off third drill program for the year in Victoria

Reinvigorated goldie Aureka Limited has kicked off another new drilling campaign, this time at its St Arnaud gold project in Victoria. It is the company’s third program for the year, as drill testing wraps up at its flagship Irvine Stawell project.

The recently relisted gold explorer is making good on its promise of a 7000-metre drilling blitz across its trio of prospective Victorian assets, having already completed a seven-hole diamond drilling program at its Tandarra joint venture.

Management says the diamond drill rigs are spinning at St Arnaud, a historic goldfield that once churned out a handsome 400,000 ounces at a cracking 15 grams per tonne (g/t). Meanwhile, Tandarra’s latest core samples have headed to the lab for assaying.

Aureka Limited’s Comstock open pit at its St Arnaud gold project in Victoria, where the company has kicked off a 1400m diamond drilling program.

It’s a busy restart for Aureka, which is freshly cashed up from a recent $5 million raising to amplify its existing 304,000-ounce gold resources. The company has an immediate exploration target of 280,000 to 420,000 ounces.

The St Arnaud program is set for four diamond holes for 1400m, targeting extensions of mineralisation near the historic Comstock open pit, just 2.2 kilometres north of the St Arnaud township.

‘The company controls tenements across not only the Comstock open pit mine but across the whole St Arnaud goldfield.’

Aureka Limited managing director James Gurry

The program is following up a 2021 campaign that delivered high-grade hits such as 1m at 13.9g/t gold within a broader 25.3m zone grading 1.7g/t, 4.6m at 3.2g/t gold with 26.9g/t silver and an 8.3m hit running 2.1g/t gold.

The program is expected to wrap up in two to three weeks and the first assays from Tandarra are expected shortly after.

Aureka Limited managing director James Gurry said: “It is great to see the team commence at St Arnaud, one of our key projects and where the company controls tenements across not only the Comstock open pit mine but across the whole St Arnaud goldfield.”

St Arnaud’s allure lies in its rich past and untapped potential. Mined from the mid-1850s to the early 1900s, the goldfield’s quartz reef systems yielded high-grade bounty, which Aureka hopes it can replicate over its 1500 square kilometres of tenure.

Management insists the current campaign isn’t just about chasing known gold zones, the company is also eyeing the project’s greenfields potential under the Murray Basin cover to the north, where an air core drilling program and geophysical surveys could unlock a hidden extension of the goldfield’s storied reefs.

Meanwhile, over at the Irvine project in the Stawell Corridor, a drilling program is nearing completion on targets that remain open along strike and at depth, just 20km south of the 5-million-ounce Stawell gold mine.

The Tandarra joint venture with ASX-listed gold producer Catalyst Metals wrapped up a seven-hole diamond drilling program last month in some of Victoria’s richest historic gold ground.

Tandarra is just 50km northwest of Agnico Eagle’s world-beating Fosterville operation and 40km north of the 22M-ounce Bendigo goldfields and has a past 12.9m intercept running at 33.1g/t, with a half-metre slice at a jaw-dropping 831g/t.

The ultra-high-grade Fosterville itself churned out 225,000 ounces last year at US$653 (A$1060) per ounce, proving that for the Victorian goldfields, grade really is king.

Aureka’s three-pronged attack – St Arnaud’s historical promise, Irvine’s advancing resource and Tandarra’s high-grade potential - comes at an opportune time in a record high gold price environment. With assay results looming from Irvine and Tandarra, and St Arnaud’s drills now turning, the next few months could prove pivotal for the revived goldie.

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