Queensland explorer Great Divide Mining has hit the boards of the Australian Stock Exchange after a $5 million initial public offering.
The company hopes to apply the funds towards a portfolio of gold and critical metals assets, each of which is believed to have “company maker” potential.
Known as Yellow Jack (prospective for gold), Coonambula (gold-antimony), Devils Mountain (gold) and Cape (copper-gold-rare earths), the projects sit within areas of historical mining with past exploration and nearby infrastructure.
They are all located in Queensland within recognised major mineral provinces.
Staged approach
Great Divide’s projects will each be advanced using a staged approach, with an initial focus on Yellow Jack driven by the potential for mining to commence within 18 months thanks to a shallow resource with existing heap leach and carbon-in-pulp (CIP) processing plants nearby.
The infrastructure will enable development with limited capital expenditure and cashflows generated will be used to support exploration at the remaining projects.
Yellow Jack has been subject to historical rotary air blast and reverse circulation drilling with results including 7 metres at 4.1 grams per tonne gold and 16m at 3.5g/t gold, with an existing resource of shallow oxide gold open in all directions.
Antimony was previously mined in an area just outside of the tenement known as Turtle Creek, which had potential targets extending onto the Yellow Jack acreage.
Mineral resource estimate
Great Divide said it would finalise a mineral resource estimate for Yellow Jack within the coming weeks.
The estimate will be completed by a number of consultants engaged by the company to commence work immediately.
Construction will also start on a mobile sample preparation laboratory which will provide early portable xray fluorescence (pXRF) sample analyses to improve long-term analysis turnaround times.
Requests for tender have been sent out for drone-based LiDAR (light detection and ranging) surveys over Yellow Jack, Coonambula and Devils Mountain and drilling at Yellow Jack is expected to start shortly.
