Odyssey Gold has an important role to play in WA’s Murchison gold district, with shallow high-grade projects that could seed a new chapter for the region.
Odyssey Gold is advancing a strong pipeline of gold projects that could inject a much-needed high-grade infusion into the Murchison region of Western Australia.
The company could hold the key for its neighbours, such as Westgold Resources, Ramelius Resources and Gascoyne Resources, who are looking for high-grade tonnes to feed their processing plants.
“The operations of mid-tier mining companies in the area are mine-constrained,” Odyssey Gold chief executive officer and managing director Matt Briggs told Australian Resources & Investment.
“This means they’re not making the cash they hope to be making due to the low grades they’re mining underground to try and fill their mills. They’re doing a lot of good work to keep their costs down at their ageing mines, but mining two grams per tonne underground is hard work.
“The five shallow open pits at Tuckanarra in the mid 1990s mined two-and-a-half to three-and-a-half grams per tonne. We are expecting to see the same from our future open pits, with some of the mineralisation starting at surface.”
Odyssey Gold’s Highway Zone, one of five advanced prospects within its Tuckanarra gold project, could be the answer the Murchison region’s mid-tier producers are looking for, having demonstrated consistent thick oxide mineralisation across over 300m of strike.
“At the Highway Zone we consistently see intersections of 10–20 metres true width with over three grams per tonne or more in oxide extending to depth,” Briggs said.
Significant intersections from the Highway Zone in recent months include 43m at 8.3 grams per tonne (g/t) from 41m at drill hole CBRC0136, including 12m at 27.5g/t gold. This included an 80.9g/t hit across 3m.
Drill hole CBRC0139 intersected 33m at 3.4g/t gold from 73m, while drill hole CBRC0143 hit 21m at 3.3g/t gold from 65m.
These results built on the Highway Zone’s initial discovery hole, where Odyssey Gold intersected 84m at 2.5g/t gold from 25m in August 2022.
“Once we intersected an interval 84 metres wide, we knew we were onto the extension of the mineralised trend. The 300-metre shoot along strike of the historic pits is much thicker and more consistent in grade than what you’re seeing in the other deposits on the project,” Briggs said.
“Our focus for the last six months has been drilling shallow oxide at the Highway Zone to resource spacing, understanding the controls of gold mineralisation and drilling the extensions along strike.”
Briggs explained the geological nature of the Highway Zone in more detail.
“Along the Highway Zone’s 300 metres of strike, we are regularly intersecting 25 gram-metres or better,” he said.
“And there’s a 150-metre-long extra-high-grade shoot where we’re getting consistent intersections of over five grams (per tonne). It’s a 20-to-30-metre true width shear zone containing three to seven parallel veins. Often the veins are continuous across an interval of 40 metres wide.”
“We have confidence this will be an open pit in the future. The 150-metre-long high-grade shoot is only drilled to 180 metres below surface, and we expect further drilling to extend the underground mining potential down plunge. Murchison deposits often continue down 700 to 1000 metres below surface, and we have real potential for that scale here.”
Briggs said Odyssey Gold could proceed to grow the Highway Zone and the Tuckanarra project by itself and toll treat at a neighbour’s mill, it could enter into a joint venture or sell the project for the right price.
“Much of the project is covered by a granted mining lease. Metallurgical testwork, cultural heritage, and environmental surveys have previously been completed, significantly de-risking the project and expediting development.”
And while Odyssey Gold is generating plenty of interest from its gold-mining peers, the company still has a few objectives to achieve before it actions any opportunities.
“We’re still determining the scale of the project,” Briggs said.
“It’s only nine months ago that we started to unlock the potential of the Highway Zone and have already seen a dramatic change to the outlook of the project.
“There are a number of similar opportunities that need to be assessed before settling on the path forward. The deepest hole in the Highway Zone is only 180 metres below surface, so we’re really only getting started there and we are exploring for additional shoots along strike.”
In late-April, Odyssey Gold announced reconnaissance AC (aircore) drilling that had extended the Highway Zone’s ultramafic stratigraphy for an additional 650m.
“The project continues to grow,” Briggs said. “We just recently announced aircore intersections of two metres at five-and-a-half grams (per tonne). These are 260 metres to the east of the most recent resource RC (reverse circulation) drilling.
“High grades have been intersected in oxide demonstrating the potential for additional shallow oxide mineralisation to be defined.
“This area … has surface workings for 200m of strike and grab samples assayed last year yielded up to 18.5g/t gold and March results of 3m at 1.5g/t in scout RC drilling, highlighting the potential for the continued growth of this system.”
All data and assays from the recent successful drilling programs at Tuckanarra will underpin a maiden JORC 2012 open-pit resource estimate, which the company hopes to release in the not-too-distant future.
“One of the first objectives Ian Middlemas, the Odyssey Gold chairman, put to me was to quantify the open-pit resources while understanding the shoot controls to allow the company to understand Tuckanarra’s underground potential,” Briggs said.
Given the strategic importance of Odyssey Gold’s high grades to the Murchison gold district, you can guarantee the company’s peers, shareholders and interested investors will be eagerly awaiting the maiden Tuckanarra resource.
Odyssey Gold’s strategy to unlock the high-grade potential of Tuckanarra could prove to be the catalyst that sparks the Murchison’s next gold mining chapter.
Odyssey Gold presented at the RIU Sydney Resources Round-up in May.
This feature appeared in the June–July edition of Australian Resources & Investment.