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REFINING THE GOLD STANDARD abcrefinery.com

It is surprising that 1 moz could be uncovered so close to
Kalgoorlie after more than a century of exploration in the
district, but Castleden puts that down to the transported cover
profile of the area.
“A big stretch of the ground is under cover and the oxidised
profile is 100% leached so the historical RAB and aircore
results are basically redundant,” he said. “That is where new
deposits will be found; at or below the last metre of RAB and
aircore holes.

Apollo continues to find widespread gold anomalism over the
entire Lake Rebecca project area

“In the basic bottle roll tests we are getting 93% recoveries in
the fresh so it is more about finetuning than any risk,” he said.
“It is not overly hard rock, the RC rig goes through it fast. So,
fingers crossed it doesn’t need too much energy because in
all these big volume deposits energy is a major cost factor.”
While the PFS is gathering momentum, Castleden knows
a BFS would likely be dealing with more ounces. An April
resource update lifted indicated resources to 19.2mt @ 1.3
g/t for 815,000oz gold with the global resource standing at
29.1mt @ 1.2 g/t for 1.105 moz. However, recent drilling at the
main Rebecca deposit as well as satellite orebodies and new
targets has the company confident of further resource growth.
“We are drilling multiple things with resource definition in the Recent drilling returned enticing intercepts from the newly
optimised pit shells, extension work outside the shells and identified Cleo prospect
pure exploration between the pits,” Castleden explained.
The economic hits have continued to flow in. Since the
resource update the company has reported hits of 7m @ 12.15 “Cleo is an example of that. It had two aircore traverses over
g/t, 23m @ 2.35 g/t, 20m @ 2.44 g/t and 10m @ 4.07 g/t on it which didn’t light up on any of our geochemical thresholds,
the eastern edge of the Rebecca optimised pit shell, 23m @ but we are finding gold in the RC drilling. It is scary but good.”
1.33 g/t and 18m @ 1.39 g/t north-west of the Duchess deposit Fortunately for Apollo, the nature of mineralisation allows it to
and 10m @ 3.66 g/t, 5m @ 6.75 g/t and 5m @ 3.76 g/t from vector in quickly despite the ineffectiveness of aircore drilling.
the newly declared Cleo discovery, 1.5km west of Rebecca.
“Luckily, the commercial grades are surrounded by low grades
Exploration will continue to flesh out the along-strike extensions so if we hit 0.1 g/t gold we know we are in the game. If there is
and also bring Cleo into the overall resource. nothing, we can walk away from that target immediately.
“Cleo is getting towards pre-resource stage now and it looks “Looking at the regional datasets, our area just lights up in
like it will have the ounces to be the next pit shell,” he said. comparison to others. You are talking 20m intersections
Castleden believes Cleo is an indication that there are still compared to 1-2m elsewhere. The whole system has gold,
plenty of higher-grade ore positions to uncover on the 160sq almost like a porphyry copper system.”
km package. With that kind of exploration opportunity in front of it, Castleden
“They may not be as big as Rebecca [840,000oz] but they will is keen to ensure Apollo remains, in some part, an exploration
add incremental ounces,” he said. “Even at depth in Rebecca, story, even if his overall pitch is changing.
there are several intersections of plus-4 g/t over 20m true “Diggers & Dealers is going to be about explaining our
width at depth. The structural geology experts who’ve looked transformation from pure exploration to commercial
at it say that the system is alive at depth so should keep going. significance,” he said. “Half of our shareholders are in for the
“At a regional scale, we are turning up gold everywhere we exploration story, the other half see it as a mine. Luckily, we
test, and we know we require a lot more work on the geology have the exploration results and the technical milestones to
and structure in that corridor between Cleo and Rebecca.” satisfy both.”

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