Takes Up Operatorship Of Regional JV Activities In WA
Rox Resources Limited (ASX: RXL) has met its earn-in requirements at the Youanmi Regional Gold Project held in joint venture with Venus Metals Corporation Limited.
The Youanmi Gold Project is located 480 km to the northeast of Perth, Western Australia, accessed by the sealed Great Northern Highway for a distance of 418 km from Perth to Paynes Find and then for 150 km by the unsealed Paynes Find to Sandstone Road.
The Youanmi Gold Project consists of four joint ventures with Venus Metals Corporation Limited and tenements 100% owned by Rox. The joint ventures are:
- The OYG JV (Rox 70% all minerals) – covers 65 sq. km, is circa 10km x 7km wide, and surrounds the Youanmi Gold Mine and nearby extensions
- the Currans Find JV (Rox 45%, all minerals) – covers four sq.km
- the VMC JV (Rox 50% gold rights) – covers 302 sq. km
- the Youanmi JV (Rox 45% gold rights) – covers 270 sq. km
In 2019, Rox acquired interests in the OYG JV and the Currans Find JV and entered into earn-in arrangements on the other two JV’s. Under the terms of the VMC JV, Rox was required to spend A$800,000 on exploration to earn a 50% interest in the gold rights of the VMC JV, and under the terms of the Youanmi JV was required to spend A$200,000 on exploration to earn a 45% interest in the gold rights of the Youanmi JV. These expenditure commitments have now been met.
In addition, having earned its interest in all joint ventures, Rox has assumed operational management of all regional joint ventures from VMC.
Having assumed management, Rox is undertaking a comprehensive review of the extensive historical dataset (drilling, geochemical and geophysical) with the aim of identifying target regions of structural complexity that are fluid focusing gold deposition trap sites.
Target generation will focus on discovering free milling gold mineralisation analogous to Ramelius Resources’ Penny deposits i.e. quartz-sulphide lode veins occurring within greenstone and granitoid intrusive units with associated lead, zinc and copper pathfinder elements.
Much of the Youanmi Shear zone has been lightly explored by historical operators with sporadic RAB drilling and ineffective soil sampling over areas of transported cover. Additionally, a significant amount of the historical RAB drilling is contained within the regolith and did not test the basement geology, much of which were only assayed for gold and not full suite of significant pathfinder elements for Penny style mineralisation.
On completion of the data review an extensive systematic aircore drilling program will be undertaken to identify basement lodes beneath cover. Samples will be assayed for the full suite of pathfinder elements to vector towards mineralisation and map bedrock lithologies. Subsequent RC drilling will follow up anomalous results.
