Nova Minerals commissions prep lab at 4.7-million-ounce Estelle Gold Project in Alaska

Nova Minerals Ltd (ASX:NVA) has commissioned its sample crushing preparation laboratory at the 4.7-million-ounce Estelle Gold Project northwest of Anchorage, Alaska, and is now fully operational. As the drill season is now in full swing with drilling programs ramping up, the lab will be able to concentrate on fast-tracking samples as they come through the core logging facility. The lab, which is equipped to process up to 7,500 samples per month will be operated by an independent contractor to maintain the independence of results from all drill programs. Outsourcing of this work also ensures a supply of well-trained staff, experienced in the preparation of samples for assay. Set to reduce costs Speaking to the update, chief executive officer Christopher Gerteisen said: “As we continue to advance and increase the Korbel Main deposit both in size and confidence, hoping to release a resource update and a maiden resource for RPM in Q4, this purpose-built sample preparation laboratory on-site will reduce costs significantly. “It will improve assay turnaround times to release these mineral resource estimates much faster, allowing us to focus on completing the scoping study.” Diamond drilling ramp-up Gerteisen continued: “The regional recon exploration teams are now being mobilised to continue to advance the other high-priority targets across the project area as part of our mission to unlock the district and develop a pipeline of deposits. “An additional diamond drill rig has also now been ordered as we plan to ramp things up considerably. “We expect this rig to be mobilised and start turning in the coming months. “Drilling related news and results will continue to flow throughout 2021 and beyond.” Background Back in 2020, Nova made the decision to construct its own sample preparation lab to combat the long delays occurring in the laboratories globally. The ability to prepare samples ready for pulverising and assay will decrease the turnaround and will also afford Nova the flexibility to send the samples straight to Reno or Vancouver for pulverisation thereby bypassing Fairbanks for crushing. As sample lengths are an average of 3 metres, Nova’s commercial preparation laboratories (aka ASL or TSL) were finding that crushing these larger samples to be time-consuming, thereby causing a major bottleneck in the sample preparation process. By completing crushing on site, it is expected that assay result turnaround times will be significantly improved.