Platina Resources (ASX:PGM) on course to realise golden dream at Xanadu

Highlights

• Platina Resources (ASX:PGM) is developing its Xanadu gold project, which neighbours the Mt Olympus gold deposit containing 1.65 Moz of gold resources
• The company has recently received assays from maiden drilling at the project, highlighting the presence of gold mineralisation
• PGM plans to undertake the Phase 2 drilling program and a cultural heritage survey in Q2 2023

Gold, also known as God’s own currency, is touted as a safe haven during uncertain times. In August 2020, the yellow metal touched its all-time high of US$2000/oz. The commodity again went on a bullish trend and touched the US$2000/oz mark in March 2022 amidst global uncertainties during the Russia-Ukraine war.

The trend witnessed during the last few years has been contrary to the performance of major other asset classes, including equity and currencies.

The positive sentiments in the yellow metal have attracted several gold players to accelerate their development activities across their projects and milk the recent bull run.

With this backdrop, let's look at gold explorer Platina Resources Limited (ASX:PGM), which operates in a world-class gold destination in one of the world’s most prolific mineral provinces, Western Australia.  

Xanadu sits within Ashburton basin with major gold discoveries

Platina’s project tapping the potential of the Ashburton Basin is the Xanadu Gold project.

Xanadu, which Platina fully controls, holds close proximity to the Mt Olympus gold deposit containing 1.65 Moz gold resource. The project, situated 470km from the Nanjilgardy fault zone, is blessed with favourable host rocks with limited historical exploration.

There have been several recent discoveries along the trend, as can be seen in the figure attached below:  

(Source: PGM update, 29 November 2022) 

Xanadu's exploration strategy focusing on deeper gold potential  

Historically, the project focused on shallow oxide mineralisation for heap leach operations; however, Platina is following a different approach and is targeting the deeper gold potential of the project.  

(Source: Company update, 29 November 2022)

So far, the project has seen some maiden drilling with assay results indicating the presence of gold mineralisation.

The company plans to execute the Phase 2 drilling program and a cultural heritage survey in the second quarter of 2023. The company is targeting an unexplored 45km strike extension.

Encouraging assay results from maiden drilling at Xanadu

Platina has executed a 2,214m-wide maiden drilling program at Xanadu. The 11-hole drilling program was focused on a 4km section of the 10km mineralised and altered corridor.

The company has highlighted that the program’s assay results demonstrated the presence of gold mineralisation at depth and up to 900m of strike on the untested ground. The mineralisation was located immediately west of the historical Amphitheatre open pit.

Key intercepts that were encountered are shown below:

(Source: © 2022 Kalkine Media®, data source: Company update, 29 November 2022)

What lies ahead at Xanadu

“Future drilling will be focused on unlocking the project’s potential by testing the 900m zone west of the Amphitheatre pit and defining the down dip extension and strike of strong mineralisation in XARC009 at Cleopatra,” said Platina Managing Director Corey Nolan.

Platina has planned a geochemistry and structural mapping assessment on areas west of the Amphitheatre pit and east of Cleopatra, followed by the second phase of drilling.  

The company intends to undertake a diamond drilling rig-based Phase 2 drilling program and a cultural heritage survey during the second quarter of 2023. The future diamond drilling program will also allow testing of the previous chargeability anomalies identified from an IP geophysics survey completed in 2021.

Share price: PGM shares traded at AU$0.020 apiece with a market capitalisation of AU$12.46 million on 8 December 2022.