Founders shares jump on new find, drilling expansion

Founders Metals (TSXV: FDR; US-OTC: FDMIF) shares hit a new 52-week high of $4.43 apiece Thursday as it reported a new high-grade gold discovery at its Antino project in Suriname that prompted it to upsize its drill program at the Lower Antino target.

Hole 24LA003 cut 81.9 metres grading 1.01 grams gold per tonne from 74.1 metres depth, including 26 metres at 2.36 grams gold, Founders reported Thursday. The 81.9-metre interval was within a broader zone of more than 200 metres of anomalous gold.

“With this new discovery at Lower Antino, we have yet another example of the potential scale that Antino represents,” Colin Padget, Founders’ president and CEO said in a release. “After intersecting the gold mineralization in drill hole 3, we were very excited to see the results and quickly modified the drill plan to follow-up.”

The company now plans to drill 4,500 metres at Lower Antino, up from 1,500 metres previously, part of a larger 30,000-metre drill program at Antino.

The drill plan expansion follows the closing on Tuesday of a $12.1-million investment from B2Gold (TSX: BTO; NYSE: BTG), for a total of $32.1 million invested in the junior over the last month, to be spent on exploration at Antino. A $20-million private placement from a syndicate of underwriters led by BMO Capital Markets was announced on Oct. 10. The company is working towards an initial resource next year for the 238-sq.-km Antino project in Suriname’s southeast.

Founders shares rose 10.5% on Thursday at mid-day in Toronto, giving the company a market capitalization of $326.7 million.

Gold prices have begun to climb out of yesterday’s dip, and were at US$2,698.60 per oz. on Thursday morning.

Wider gold mineralization

The Lower Antino target consists of a 1.5-km wide 2-km long gold anomaly that returned historical auger samples of as high as 49.3 grams gold. In the current drill program, the zone at Lower Antino pierced by the 24LA003 discovery hole consists of unweathered rock about 100 metres down-dip of that historical sample.

Recent channel sampling at Lower Antino has also returned grades of up to 21 grams gold, with historical grab samples grading up to 340 grams gold, suggesting potential for more high-grade discoveries in the broader Lower Antino system.