ASX All Ords gold stock Barton Gold Holdings Ltd (ASX: BGD) is edging lower today.
Barton Gold shares closed yesterday trading for $1.130. In early morning trade on Tuesday, shares are swapping hands for $1.125 apiece, down 0.4%.
For some context, the All Ordinaries Index (ASX: XAO) is up 1.1% at this same time.
But today's underperformance is not par for the course for the Aussie gold miner.
Taking a step back, the Barton Gold share price has gained 301.8% over 12 months, smashing the 6.2% one-year returns delivered by the All Ords.
As you'd expect, the ASX All Ords gold stock has enjoyed steady tailwinds from the surging gold price. Gold is currently trading for US$4,661 per ounce. While that's down 14% from the near record US$5,417 that same ounce of gold was worth on 28 January, the gold price is still up a blistering 66% since this time last year.
And Barton Gold has been catching plenty of investor interest with its ongoing exploration programs.
ASX All Ords gold stock on the hunt for water
The Barton Gold share price has yet to get a boost after the miner announced that it has kicked off water bore drilling at its Tunkillia Gold Project, located in South Australia.
In May, the company's Optimised Scoping Study (OSS) estimated annual production potential at Tunkillia of 120,000 ounces of gold and 250,000 ounces of silver.
With both gold and silver prices now exceeding the forecasts used in the OSS, the ASX All Ords gold stock said that it is expediting Tunkillia toward Mining Lease (ML) application.
In light of this, Barton Gold has engaged Underdale Drillers to complete some 900 metres of drilling for preliminary water testing near the OSS open pits. If the miner can locate additional nearby water sources, it could help both de-risk and improve the project economics.
Looking ahead, the company plans to commence a 28,000-metre second phase reverse circulation (RC) resource upgrade drilling campaign in March. Concurrently, it will run a 3,000-metre geotechnical & metallurgical diamond drilling (DD) program.
What did management say?
Commenting on the upcoming drilling programs that could help boost the ASX All Ords gold stock, Barton managing director Alexander Scanlon said:
The Tunkillia OSS demonstrated the financial and capital leverage available to large-scale bulk processing operations, with the major advantage of a higher-grade 'Starter Pit' that can pay back development costs 2x over in the first year.
With recent Resource upgrade drilling results further de-risking this profile, we are advancing our other development drilling programs in support of planned JORC Ore Reserves, a PFS, and a Mining Lease application by the end of 2026…
Our objective is to bring Tunkillia online as soon as possible to realise our gold production target of 150,000 ounces annually.
