Southern Cross Gold more than doubles Sunday Creek drill program

Australia’s Southern Cross Gold (ASX: SXG) has reported 38 intersections with grades higher than 100 grams per tonne gold-equivalent over a metre’s width at its Sunday Creek project in Victoria, Australia. The company now plans to drill 60,000-metres over the next year, about twice the previous target.

In the latest batch of assay results released on May 27, Southern Cross said hole SDDSC115A intersected 11 high-grade gold structures over a 365.7-metre width. These included 1.5 metres at 10.6 grams gold per tonne and 1% antimony for 12.4 grams gold-equivalent per tonne from 532.6 metres, 3.2 metres at 45.3 grams gold and 1.5% antimony (48.2 grams gold-equivalent) from 643.4 metres, and 0.3 metre at 86.4 grams gold and 0.4% antimony (87.2 grams gold-equivalent) from 707.7 metres.

The second hole on the rising Sun prospect, hole SDDSC117, tested the strike continuity of high-grade targets and intercepted eight mineralized structures, including 0.5 metre at 473 grams gold (473.1 grams gold-equivalent) from 913.6 metres and 8.7 metres at 3.5 grams gold and 0.3% antimony (4.1 grams gold-equivalent) from 741.9 metres.

Since the current drilling started early last year, the company has been tracing increasingly warmer targets, managing director Michael Hudson said in a statement.

“Importantly, the frequency of these significant hits continues to increase as we drill towards depth and understand the controls on high-grade mineralization better,” he said.

The Mawson Gold (TSXV: MAW) subsidiary’s campaign will ramp up with the immediate addition of a fifth drill rig and a sixth rig by September, it said in the news release. The decision follows the release of another set of drill results that expanded the deposit and confirmed its continuity.

Exploration target

In January, Southern Cross announced an exploration target to highlight the significant gold-antimony potential at Sunday Creek. Covering 620 metres, or about half of the main drilling area, this target includes the Rising Sun and Apollo zones, representing less than 10% of the project’s 11-km strike length.

The estimated potential mineralization ranges from 4.4 million to 5.1 million tonnes, with grades of 7.2–9.7 grams per tonne gold-equivalent, translating to about 1–1.6 million oz. of contained metal. The company says that gold and antimony should be included in the gold-equivalent calculation, which has a reasonable potential to be recovered at Sunday Creek.

The 60,000-metre drill program set to more than double the drill metres into the Sunday Creek project over the next year, Hudson said. Southern Cross will expand this globally significant gold discovery via logical step-outs along strike to increase volume,” Hudson said.

Geophysics planned

The company will use a specialized navigational downhole drilling technique (NAVI) to ensure detailed drilling around high-grade areas, improving confidence in the continuity of these high-grade zones. The NAVI drilling program will to test the continuity of “super high-grade areas,” Hudson said.

The company is also planning a regional-scale induced polarization geophysical survey to test a 10-km-long trend along strike from the core drilled area to demonstrate the project’s district-scale potential.

Mawson owns a 51% stake in Southern Cross, which it values at about A$270.5 million ($245.3 million) based on current stock prices.

Southern Cross’s Sydney-quoted stock achieved a 12-month high at A$4.49 per share early in May but dropped back to about A$2.84 on Thursday. It has a market capitalization of A$553.02 million ($502 million).

Mawson’s Toronto-listed equity is at 76¢ per share, up about 350% over the past 12 months, despite having dropped back from the recent peak at 90¢ apiece. It has a market cap of $232 million.