Austral Gold Limited is pleased to announce the start of a new drilling campaign at the Casposo-Manantiales Project located in the province of San Juan, Argentina. The Company plans to drill approximately 4,000 metres of diamond drilling ("DD") in 16 DD holes. The focus of the drilling program is to follow up on the results achieved in previous drilling campaigns at the Manantiales vein disclosed in the 27 July 2022 and 26 October 2021 media releases. The drilling program plans to define the upside of the northern and southern ore-shoots and explore the potential to the South and North at the protected blocks related to the Vallecito reverse fault. To date, 2,313 metres were drilled in 12 DD holes and total exploration costs were US$1.2 million.
Exploration activities are also ongoing at the Cerro Amarillo Project, including mapping and sampling of trenches in the areas where we previously identified high-gold grades through rock-chip sampling (figure 3). The new drilling program is also expected to include three to four drill holes in the Cerro Amarillo Project to test mineralisation continuity at depth. In addition, following the news release dated 27 July 2022, the last four pending assays from Fabiola and Awada (Cerro Amarillo Project) were received and there are no significant results to report.
Chief Executive Officer, Stabro Kasaneva commented: "We are pleased to commence the next phase of diamond drilling at Casposo-Manantiales. We are doubling the number of metres to be drilled in this phase based on high gold grades of > 10 g/t received in our most recent drilling program. Austral Gold's objective at Casposo-Manantiales is to restart mining operations as we have established infrastructure including a 1,500 tpd crushing circuit agitation leach and Merrill Crowe processing plant, which is currently on care and maintenance."
Technical information in this media release that relates to Exploration Results is based on work supervised, or compiled on behalf of Robert Trzebski, a Director of the Company. Dr. Trzebski, who is a member of the Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy (AusIMM) and qualifies as a Competent Person as defined in the 2012 Edition of the 'Australasian Code for Reporting of Exploration Results, Mineral Resources and Ore Reserves' consents to the inclusion of the technical information that he has reviewed and approved or has been compiled on his behalf.
Austral Gold Limited is a gold and silver explorer and mining producer whose strategy is to expand the life of its cash generating assets in Chile, restart its Casposo-Manantiales mine complex in Argentina and build a portfolio of quality assets in Chile, the USA and Argentina organically through exploration and via acquisitions and strategic partnerships. Austral owns a 100% interest in the Guanaco/Amancaya mines in Chile and the Casposo-Manantiales mine complex (currently on care and maintenance) in Argentina, a non-controlling interest in the Rawhide Mine in Nevada, USA and a non-controlling interest in Ensign Gold which holds the Mercur project in Utah, USA.
In addition, Austral owns an attractive portfolio of exploration projects in the Paleocene Belt in Chile (including those acquired in the 2021 acquisition of Revelo Resources Corp), a noncontrolling interest in Pampa Metals and a 100% interest in the Pingüino project and a 51% interest in the Sierra Blanca project, both in Santa Cruz, Argentina. Austral Gold Limited is listed on the TSX Venture Exchange (TSXV: AGLD) and the Australian Securities Exchange. (ASX: AGD).