Shares of Aton Resources (TSXV: AAN) reached their highest value in three years as the company reported its latest drill results from its Rodruin gold exploration project in eastern Egypt.
Highlights from the diamond drill results included 9.9 metres grading 39.4 grams gold per tonne, 261.7 grams silver, 0.84% copper, 0.02% tin and 3.55% zinc starting from 138.1 metres in hole ROD-071 and 5.7 metres grading 4.21 grams gold, 14.6 grams silver, 0.11% copper, 0.07% tin and 1.64% zinc starting from the surface in hole ROD-070.
“To say that we are happy with these latest drilling results… would frankly be a bit of an understatement,” the company’s interim CEO Tonno Vahk said in a press release. “The sulphide intersection from hole ROD-071 is by some distance the best intersection Aton has ever drilled in Egypt and is hugely encouraging for the deeper sulphide potential at Rodruin.”
Discovered in 2017, the Rodruin project is located on Aton’s 100%-owned Abu Marawat concession in the central Eastern Desert of Egypt. The concession is about 200 km north of Centamin’s (TSX: CEE; LSE: CEY) Sukari gold mine, which produced about 415,000 oz. gold in 2021 and has been in production for the last 13 years.
The property also includes two past-producing mines, Semna and Sir Bakis, which were operational during the early 20th century.
The south ridge at Aton’s Rodruin gold project, part of its Abu Marawat concession in Egypt. Credit: Aton Resources.
In an interview with The Northern Miner, Javier Orduña, the company’s exploration manager, described the geology of the deposit as “unusual,” one that doesn’t have “any obvious analogues” anywhere else in the world.
Aton decided to fast-track the project since the geological potential of the area was “completely unknown” and not recorded prior to the discovery, the company said.
But Orduña says that there were “certainly” ancient miners who explored the region “thousands of years ago” and adds that the name of one of the project’s zones, the Aladdin’s Hill, came from old clay oil lamps that that Aton found underground in some of the ancient workings.
“Rodruin really is probably the first significant “new” greenfields discovery in Egypt in over a hundred years, since the old British era of gold mining in the early 20th century,” said Orduña.
In 2018, Aton conducted a reverse-circulation drill program consisting of 50 holes which yielded an intercept of 56 metres grading 8.20 grams gold per tonne from the surface.
The ongoing second-phase drilling program began in November and has so far covered about 3,862 metres. The company plans to drill up to 7,000 metres before producing a resource estimate for the project in the first half of 2023.
“We will crack into the mineral resource estimate as soon as we finish drilling, but the deposit is pretty structurally complex, so it’s going to take a while to really pull it together,” said Orduña.
The project includes two distinct mineralization styles – the first hosted in sulphidic carbonates, which weather to gossans, and a second style of coarse gold-bearing mineralization hosted in heavily altered sediments, Vahk said.
He added that the identification of high grade, sulphide-rich altered sediment mineralization at depth indicated the potential for Rodruin to become a “significant sized deposit.”
The Rodruin area, part of Aton Resources’ Abu Marawat gold concession in Egypt. Credit: Aton Resources.
Highlights from the project’s drill results released in early May included 40 metres grading 2.32 grams gold per tonne, 8.2 grams silver, 0.02% copper and 0.12% zinc starting from 5.2 metres in drill hole ROD-062 and 12.3 metres grading 1.57 grams gold, 8.8 grams silver, 0.05% copper and 0.12% zinc starting from 28.1 metres in hole ROD-069.
Aside from the Rodruin project, Aton’s Abu Marawat concession in Egypt also includes other gold and base metal exploration targets such as the Hamama deposit in the west and the Abu Marawat polymetallic deposit in the northeast.
According to Orduña, Egypt is working hard to reform its mining policies, and to make itself more attractive for foreign investment. “Aton has been working here for quite a long time now, and we can certainly see the very positive changes that are happening here now,” he said.
At mid-day in Toronto, Aton’s shares were trading at 69¢ after opening at 31¢ before falling to 51¢, a 92% increase, in the afternoon. The company has 56 million common shares outstanding for a market cap of $28 million.
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