The Simon Lawson-led explorer found trace visible gold 400m down-dip of the 950,000-ounce Never Never resource estimate, reportedly striking more than 20m of the deposit’s “typical” mineralisation style. Assays are still pending for the intercept.
Meanwhile, new reported assays from the deposit include 12.54m at 14.32 grams per tonne gold, from 571m, including 2.52m at 67.5gpt, as well as 12.8m at 8.13gpt gold from 608m, including 1m at 96.47gpt.
Spartan said it believed all intersections to be approximate true widths.
The explorer reported one of its best-ever hits from the deposit back in early March, having at the time traced Never Never to around 1km down-dip.
Lawson said today’s results took the down-plunge extent of Never Never to beyond a kilometre in vertical depth and 1.25km down-plunge.
Spartan is planning to publish an updated Never Never resource around mid-2024.
Meanwhile, drilling at the nearby Sly Fox deposit has effectively doubled the mineralised strike length in the area, with results of up to 23.6m at 2.45gpt gold from 457.4m, including 7m at 4.07gpt.
Spartan’s Never Never discovery has thrust the company into the spotlight over the past year, particularly amid recent bustling M&A activity across the gold sector.
The company has reported some rapid resource growth at Dalgaranga, growing ounces by 122% and grade by 55% over just two years.
And, of course, it doesn’t hurt that Spartan owns an idled 2.5Mt processing plant that it’s waiting to restart.
As Lawson put it at the Resources Rising Starts Gather Round investor conference last week, Spartan’s strong exploration focus and existing infrastructure makes it something of a “hybrid” investment proposition.
As far as a potential corporate deal goes, he didn’t rule out the idea.
“Are we a target to be taken out? We focus on what we can control. And what we can control is where we drill the holes and how many ounces we can put on the table,” Lawson said.
“If someone wants to come along at any point in that journey, that’s fine.”
