Despite a steep fall this morning, ASX All Ords gold stock Ausgold Ltd (ASX: AUC) remains up 96.5% this year.
Or around nine times the 10.2% year-to-date gains posted by the All Ordinaries Index (ASX: XAO).
In morning trade today, Ausgold shares are changing hands for 82.5 cents apiece, down a sharp 8.3%.
For some context, the All Ords is down 0.7% at this same time, while the S&P/ASX All Ordinaries Gold Index (ASX: XGD) is down 9.1%. This comes after the gold price plunged overnight. Down 5.2% over the past 24 hours, gold is currently trading for US$4,125 per ounce. Though it's worth noting that the yellow metal remains up more than 50% since this time last year.
Image source: Getty Images
ASX All Ords gold stock acquires vital land parcel
Moving beyond the daily moves in the gold price, Ausgold announced this morning that it has signed a binding agreement to acquire an additional 240 hectares of freehold land.
The newly acquired parcel is required for the ASX All Ords gold stock to develop its Katanning Gold Project (KGP), located in Western Australia.
Ausgold said that about 50 hectares of the newly acquired land are part of its Mining Licence ML70/210.
And the miner highlighted that the new parcel includes "a substantial" additional buffer area around the licensed area. That enables potential growth of its Dingo Resource and Reserve, outside of the current mining lease. This could lead to an expansion of what's so far been included in the KGP mine plan in the Definitive Feasibility Study (DFS), which was delivered in June this year.
What did management say?
Commenting on the ASX All Ords gold stock's new land acquisition, Ausgold executive chairman John Dorward said:
Securing this land is another key de-risking event for the development of the KGP. Land access issues, which have historically impaired the development of the Katanning Gold Project up to this point, are being removed and we can now get on with the unfinished business of determining the full potential of this emerging gold district.
What else has been happening with Ausgold?
Ausgold released its September quarterly update on Monday.
As we noted on the day, a core achievement for the ASX All Ords gold stock over the three months was signing a binding agreement with unrelated parties to acquire some 860 hectares of freehold land critical to the development of the KGP.
"The key milestone for the September quarter was the successful resolution of the land access issue, which had been a major impediment to the development of the KGP up to this point," Dorward said on the day.
The ASX All Ords gold stock said it will commence a 44,000-metre exploratory drilling program this month, including 32,000 metres of drilling planned at KGP.
