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REFINING THE GOLD STANDARD DIGGERS & DEALERS PREVIEW abcrefinery.com

The little explorer that could

by Michael Washbourne

ess than a year after the company was reinstated to the structure they were targeting but confirmed the presence of
LTSX-V, Altan Rio Minerals Ltd could be about to achieve “significant amounts” of pyrrhotite which meant downhole
what few other junior explorers are able to master in a EM could likely to be used as effectively here as it previously
market where drill rig availability is scarce and assay labs has about 5km away at Pilot.
remain packed to the rafters. Altan previously confirmed multiple high-grade extensions to
By the time Diggers & Dealers rolls around in early August, the existing open pit at Pilot which was last mined in 1984.
Altan expects to have results from three of the five drilling “The initial focus at Pilot was about firming up a starter pit
programmes it will have completed across its key projects in that we could treat quite quickly down at Marvel Loch under
Southern Cross. the agreement we’ve got with Barto Gold Mines [Pty Ltd],”
Altan chief executive Paul Stephen said the company had Stephen said.
decided to manage its exploration plans differently to most “What was a pleasant surprise was the higher grade hits
of its peers in a bid to underneath the existing
avoid the bottleneck in workings where we
gaining access to rigs can now take the
and drillers and then project down and start
the long wait time for to look at the deeper
results at the back end. mineralisation, along
“We’ve been fortunate with the presence of
in managing the a big EM conductor at
bottlenecks that are depth. We think Pilot
in the industry with has a lot of scope to be
availability of drillers more than just a small
and assay labs. What start-up.”
we’ve managed to The diamond holes at
do – and this is what Aries were designed to
we plan to do for the follow-up on a historical
remainder of the year intersection of 12m @
– is basically try and 4.51 g/t. No drilling has
run a drill programme occurred on the ground
every couple of months between the Frasers/
Altan Rio has completed five drilling programmes over its Southern Cross
and that gives you a
projects since being reinstated to the TSX-V last September Golden Pig and Hopes
nice, continuous flow Hill mines since 2004.
of information without
Stephen said there was
going out and doing such a big programme which gets
no question Southern Cross has become an exploration
blocked up in the assay labs and you then have trouble
hotspot over the past 12-18 months and he believes Altan
getting all your results pushed through,” Stephen told GMJ.
is perfectly positioned to become of one of the region’s
“Instead of going out and doing 10,000m in one block, we’re dominant players.
doing five lots of 2,000m and that means the rig availability
“You only have to drive around there to see all the active
is there and you’re not throwing 10,000m into the assay lab
drill rigs,” he said. “There’s a lot of scope for the area to
and wanting it all back in one hit.
be reinvigorated and we’re fortunate that we’ve got a very
“We’re really trying to manage the flow of work and strategic land holding in that Fraser-Corinthian Shear Zone.
information within the scope of the resources that we’ve got Outside of Barto Gold Mines, we probably are the largest
available to us.” tenement holder of that critical contact and the main structure
It has been a busy year to date for Altan with four rounds of that hosts all the known gold mines there.”
RC drilling completed at Pilot and two EIS-funded diamond A dual listing on the ASX remains a longer-term ambition for
holes sunk into the Aries prospect. Perth-based Altan.
Stephen said the company was confident the two plus-
400m diamond holes drilled into Aries had not only hit the

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