Shares in minerals explorer Nova Minerals Ltd (ASX: NVA) lifted in early trading today after the company announced a key update regarding its Estelle Gold project.
Shortly after exiting a company-requested trading halt from this morning, the Nova Minerals share price is now trading around 7% higher at 16 cents.
Here are the details.
What did Nova Minerals announce?
Nova advised of the "maiden inferred gold resource estimate of 1.5 million ounces for the RPM North Prospect" at its Estelle site northwest of Anchorage in Alaska.
The prospect is one of 15 additional known gold occurrences at the Estelle site and remains "open at depth and along strike with further upside at the RPM South".
According to the update, the resource begins less than 2 metres from the surface and is less than half a percent of the entire project area.
Estimations were obtained from drill hole data. As it stands, the "much larger footprint RPM South Zone has yet to be drill tested".
Nova is now mobilising several diamond drilling rigs to the RPM North prospect as early as possible in 2022. It plans to set up multiple rigs operating 24 hrs a day 7 days a week to beef up the maiden resource.
Speaking on the announcement, Nova Minerals CEO Christopher Gerteisen stated the discovery highlights the "massive upside potential" of the Estelle project.
He added:
Nova's management, with much credit to our team on the ground, has taken Estelle Gold Project from discovery to a multi deposit Tier 1 scale 6.2 Moz gold district in a short timeframe and on relatively limited funding. Five drill rigs are currently focused on growing Korbel and RPM with more rigs to follow…I have no doubt we will be drilling and growing our total global resource inventory for many years to come. We now look forward to a Resource Upgrade for Korbel Main, incorporating the high-grade feeder zones, in Q4.
Aside from this update, Nova also advised that "aggressive infill and extension drilling is ongoing" at its Korbel Main site with the aim of increasing the 4.7 million ounce resource size to expedite feasibility studies.
The main resource update for Korbel Main "remains on track for update before EOY [end of year] 2021". As well, there are assays for more than 10,000m of drilling still to interpret from this site.
It also advised that its "Snow Lake Resources (majority-owned lithium company) status [is] due shortly".
Nova Minerals share price snapshot
The Nova Minerals share price has had a stagnant year to date, finding itself at the same level it was at on January 1. Things aren't any better zooming out with a 3% dip into the red over the last 12 months.
Each of these returns have lagged the benchmark S&P/ASX 200 Index (ASX: XJO)'s return of around 21% in that time.
