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REGIONAL ROUNDUP

More to come

from Pickle Crow

by Mark Andrews

ompetition for investors in the gold sector is hot, despite programme in late 2020 and with $30 million
Cthe recent cooling in price from $US2,000/oz to $US1,800/
Ray Shorrocks
oz, and interest will remain in explorers who are well funded
and can rely on consistent results – companies like Auteco
Minerals Ltd. programme in late 2020 and with $30 million cash, Shorrocks
“At the moment we are seeing what we can find in and around said the programme could be easily expanded to 60,000m if
the headframe; we are seeing new areas open up, so that is necessary.
going well,” Auteco executive chairman Ray Shorrocks told While the market is still enamoured with dial-moving glamour
GMJ. drill hits, Auteco is building towards “more substance than a
“I don’t think the market has appreciated that all our drilling is sugar rush”.
structural drilling; we are trying to firm up more resources and Shorrocks said he aimed to better communicate the three-
it is not really new discovery drilling, it is really structural in pronged strategy around extensional and structural drilling at
order to build up those resources ahead of an update [2021]. Pickle Crow to the market.
That is our focus at the moment.” “We announced results at Vein 13, inside the existing resource
Twelve months ago, Auteco was a 1c/share stock. By mid- –18.5m @ 2.7 g/t gold, including 1.5 g/t from 21m. People say
2020 it had shot up to 22c/share and a $400 million market that is not great because you didn’t get 11 g/t gold again or
cap on the back of progress at the Pickle Crow gold project another 20 g/t, but there is 21 g/t in that. More importantly, we
in Ontario. are building on that whole resource, 18.5m @ 2.7 g/t doesn’t
“That was ridiculous,” Shorrocks said in relation to the mean that the grade is going down,” Shorrocks said.
company’s market appreciation in such a short period. “We “We are getting more geological confidence around our
are probably a victim of our own success. What people resource – 91.5m @ 12 g/t and then from 6m we have 1.5m @
haven’t realised is that the drilling we are doing is building the 17 g/t. On Vein 5 we have two great hits in an area of 200m by
resource.” 200m results of 3.5m @ 8 g/t and 2m @ 4 g/t all from surface.
A maiden inferred resource of 830,000oz @ 11.6 g/t gold from It is all pretty good.
Pickle Crow announced in June was warmly received and “We have to show the market our strategy, which is bringing
followed in September by an update of 1 moz @ 11.3 g/t (lower identified zones of mineralisation into JORC resource
cut-off 3.5 g/t). compliance and you do that by adding geological confidence in
Resource drilling was set to accelerate at the time of print, with drill density [in Vein 9, 13, 22]. The second approach is to extend
a third diamond rig on its way to site and a fourth arriving soon those resources along strike [Vein 5, 11, 13].”
after. Mineralisation remains open in every direction on the known
The company was about halfway through a 45,000m drilling lodes targeted in the current drilling campaign, while Auteco will
embark on testing regional targets for the first time early in the
new year.
The company hopes for resource growth to come from the new
areas of discovery, with encouragement coming from the likes
of Vein 11 – 1.6m @ 19.6 g/t gold and open in all directions.
Joining Auteco’s Canadian-based technical team, led by chief
geologist Marcus Harden, in the next period of resource growth
at Pickle Crow will be former Newmont Mining Corp geologist
Jim Edwards.
Edwards has been appointed exploration manager, while Sam
Brooks has resigned as executive technical director of Auteco
An inferred resource of 1 moz @ 11.3 g/t gold has been defined to focus on Bellevue Gold Ltd’s namesake project in Western
by Auteco at Pickle Crow, Ontario Australia.

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