Rockfire Resources rockets as it launches work to extend gold mineralisation at Plateau (ROCK)

Rockfire Resources (LSE:ROCK) was trading 27% higher at 1.05p on Monday morning after announcing that drilling to extend gold mineralisation had kicked off at its Plateau deposit in Queensland, Australia.

The firm said that a reverse circulation programme consisting of 13 proposed holes totalling 1,500m has now begun. This will aim to explore at depths of around 250m below the surface at the deposit as well as extending and infilling near-surface resources.

The development comes after Rockfire intersected 177m at 0.5 grams per tonne gold at Plateau in November last year with hole BPL025. The company will now test this geophysical anomaly by drilling holes 50 metres and 150 metres east of BPL025.

Alongside this work, which is expected to take 15 days to complete, Rockfire is also completing geological mapping and rock chip sampling at Plateau. Meanwhile, specialist analysis of drill chips collected in October last year is also nearing completing.

Rockfire’s chief executive David Price labelled the current drilling programme as “very exciting”, adding that success will demonstrate “significant extension of this deep gold mineralisation in an east-west orientation”.

“A second aim of the current program is to expand and build greater confidence in the gold mineralisation at our near-surface JORC resource, in an effort to define an open cut resource, 80m from surface,” he added. “We are fortunate to get underway with drilling at this time of the year, as the usual wet season in northern Australia has not yet arrived, and we intend to make the most of this window of good weather. Geological mapping, rock sampling and XRF analysis of drill samples from October 2019 drilling is in progress and the company expects results from this analysis within the next few weeks. We will keep the market informed of our progress.”

Plateau is based around 50 kilometres southeast of the gold mining centre of Charts Towers in Queensland and 47 kilometres of the Ravenswood mining operations, which contain more than 10 million ounces of gold. The deposit is a breccia-hosted gold system and comprises similar mineralisation and geology to that at nearby mines Mt. Wright and Kidston. Rockfire’s ultimate goal is to identify another Mt Wright-style gold opportunity.

Author: Daniel Flynn

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