Newly-listed explorer Southern Cross Gold has finalised the acquisition of a freehold block, which forms a key portion of land in and around the drilled area of its wholly-owned Sunday Creek gold project in Victoria.
The epizonal-style gold project is located 60 kilometres north of Melbourne within 193.65 square kilometres of granted exploration tenements.
Freehold ownership secures surface access for the company and provides sufficient area for any potential future gold operation.
The acquisition was funded by the proceeds of an initial public offering in March, in which Southern Cross Gold raised $9.1 million (before costs) via the issue of 45.5 million shares at $0.20 each.
Exploration success
Managing director Michael Hudson said the freehold land would enable additional exploration success.
“This purchase locks in land access and will help secure future success at Sunday Creek,” he said.
“We look forward to continuing to work closely with all our neighbours and stakeholders, including the Taungurung Land and Waters Council as the project continues to develop.”
He said the company would consider other uses for the freehold land, including renewable energy options, livestock grazing or agistment to help maintain the property.
Better discovery
Southern Cross Gold considers Sunday Creek to be one of the “better new exploration discoveries” to come out of Victoria in recent times and has to-date generated 12 intersections with 100g/t gold equivalent per metre results.
This week, the company posted strong results from six of the holes, featuring high-grades and wide zones of gold and antimony mineralisation.
Multiple intersections grading over 15g/t gold included peak grades of 81.2g/t gold and 3.4% antimony (over 0.3 metres).
Antimony content
Epizonal deposits in Victoria often have associated high levels of the critical metal antimony and Sunday Creek is no exception.
The production of antimony is currently dominated by China and Russia which supply approximately 82% of the market’s needs.
Australia ranks seventh in the world for antimony production, all of which is generated from the Costerfield mine in Victoria (owned by Canadian company Mandalay Resources Corporation).
Adequate supplies of the metal are considered important to the world’s energy transition.
It is a critical element in the manufacture of lithium-ion batteries and to the next generation of liquid metal batteries which will lead to scalable energy storage for wind and solar power.
