Auteco Minerals strong gold drilling results support strategy to extend Pickle Crow

Auteco Minerals Ltd (ASX:AUT) (OTCMKTS:MNXMF) is confident that strong drilling results pave the way for an increase in the inferred resource at its Pickle Crow Gold Project in Canada, which currently sits at 1 million ounces at 11.3 g/t gold. The company has completed 84 diamond drill holes for 19,423 metres of its 45,000-metre drilling program which has intersected extensions to known mineralised structures and discovered previously undefined mineralisation, all of which are outside of the reported resource. Assays have been fully or partially returned for 25 drill holes which focused on areas near existing shaft infrastructure, with results including: 5.6 metres at 33.4 g/t from 20.3 metres (shaft 3 veins); 1.6 metres at 16.7 g/t from 12.7 metres (shaft 3 veins);  2 metres at 8.2 g/t from 396.5 metres (shaft 1 veins); and 4 metres at 5.9 g/t from 420 metres (shaft 1 veins). Auteco expects to receive the balance of the assay results in the first quarter 2021.  “Strong potential to grow Pickle Crow” Auteco executive chairman Ray Shorrocks said: “These latest results provide more evidence of the strong potential to grow the 1-million-ounce resource at Pickle Crow. “This is supported by the definition of multiple new areas of high-grade quartz vein-hosted mineralisation with excellent geological continuity and multiple instances of visible gold. “This is the same style of mineralisation from which the mine produced 1.5 million ounces at 16 g/t historically. “The width and high grade of recently returned results, coupled with their shallow nature reinforces the numerous resource growth opportunities at the project.” These results are supported by numerous high-grade historical drill intercepts outside of current resources which will help to fast-track the definition of the new areas towards resource classification. Plan View of Pickle Crow mineralised trend highlighting location, Shaft locations and all results of recent reconnaissance drilling. Vein extensions continue While the drilling has extended the Shaft 1 veins and resulted in the discovery of multiple new veins currently outside of the resource around Shaft 3, it also targeted an extension of Vein 5. Results include: 2 metres at 8.2 g/t from 396.5 metres; and 4 metres at 5.9 g/t from 420 metres. The entire drill area around Vein 5 is open at depth to 710 metres below surface with high-grade intercepts of up to 0.31 metre at 61 g/t intersected on Vein 5 in historical drilling. However, historic sampling protocols selectively sampled quartz vein material only and may not represent the full width of mineralisation. The company now focusing follow up drilling on defining high-grade shoot controls and locations within the well-constrained mineralised envelopes at Vein 5. Next steps Auteco is fully funded to continue its three-rig drill program to increase the resource and test significant new targets at Pickle Crow with $32 million cash on hand (at 30 September 2020). At the completion of the phase 2 work program (near-mine extensions), the drilling program will transition to infill drilling and resource definition, which will provide sufficient data density to update the mineral resource estimate. Shorrocks said: “With three drill rigs currently operating and given the strength of the latest results, we remain on track to meet our intended Resource upgrade in the June quarter of 2021.”