The Auteco Minerals Ltd (ASX: AUT) share price is flying today after the gold explorer released its maiden JORC Resource for its flagship project.
At the time of writing, Auteco Minerals shares have skyrocketed 100% to 16 cents apiece.
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About Auteco Minerals
Auteco Minerals is an emerging mineral exploration company focused on advancing high-grade gold resources at the Pickle Crow Gold Project.
The Pickle Crow project is located in the Uchi sub-province of Ontaria, Canada. The province hosts major projects such as Evolution Mining Ltd (ASX: EVN)'s 25-million ounce Red Lake gold complex, Newmont's Musselwhite gold mine (5.7 million ounces), and First Mining's Springpole project (4.7 million ounces).
The Pickle Crow deposit was originally discovered in the early 1930s and commenced commercial production in 1935. Operating until 1966, the mine produced 1.5 million ounces of gold at an average grade of 16 grams per tonne (g/t) gold.
What's moving the Auteco share price?
This morning, Auteco announced a maiden JORC 2012-compliant inferred resource of 830,000 ounces of gold at 11.6g/t gold for its Pickle Crow project.
The resource is based on a review of the existing data at the project, including previous non-JORC estimates, and runs from the surface immediately adjacent to existing underground and surface infrastructure.
The company noted that mineralisation remains open on all lodes along strike and at depth.
"This maiden JORC Resource, which has been independently calculated, confirms Pickle Crow is a significant, high-grade deposit with immense growth potential," said executive chair Ray Shorrocks.
Auteco started its maiden drilling program at Pickle Crow last month. Since then, nine holes for 2,079 metres have been completed, with all assays pending analysis.
What now?
Based on visually-encouraging observations from the first few drill holes, Auteco has added a second drill rig and increased the initial drill program from 5,000 metres to 10,000 metres.
"This is just the beginning of work at Pickle Crow," said Mr Shorrocks.
Looking forward, Mr Shorrocks said the company's active exploration has three goals:
- Adding geological confidence to already identified areas of mineralisation that can be brought into the resource inventory;
- Extensions to the current known resources; and
- New discovery through step out exploration.
Auteco Minerals shares last traded at 16 cents apiece, which gives the company a current market capitalisation of around $210 million.
