Gold explorer Pantoro continues to expand its footprint in the Halls Creek region of Western Australia with the purchase of the historical Mary River gold project which is largely un-explored by modern techniques.
Mary River lies around 21km from the town of Halls Creek and is easily accessible via the Great Northern Highway and the Tanami Road.
It is also located in close proximity to the processing plant at its Nicolsons project which is only 50km away by road.
Mary River represents an exciting consolidation of the Halls Creek region by Pantoro given its long mining history and close proximity to the Nicolsons processing plant,” Managing Director Paul Cmrlec said.
“Pantoro owns and operates the only commercial scale gold processing plant in the region and will continue to review opportunities to expand the current operations.
“Pantoro’s landholding has grown significantly through the acquisition of Grants Creek, and now Mary River which we consider to be two of the most prospective historic goldfields in the region.”
Mr Cmrlec said exploration at Mary River would take place in conjunction with continuing programs at Nicolsons and Grants Creek.
The project covers the majority of the historical Mary River Goldfield which is approximately 15km long and 3km wide. The area has a mining history dating back to 1885 with a large number of small-scale hard rock excavations, along with eluvial and alluvial mines having operated during the area’s history. Large scale alluvial mining was undertaken as recently as the 1990’s.
Consideration for acquisition of the goldfield is A$80,000.
Despite the long mining history in the area, Mary Creek remains largely un-explored by modern techniques.
Few deposits have been drilled, and where drilling has been undertaken, it has been extremely limited. Despite this, Pantoro believes that based on historical pre-JORC results available on government databases very high-grade intersections have been achieved at the project.
Shares in the stock (ASX:PNR) were trading unchanged on Wednesday afternoon at 24c.