Alice Queen kicks off reverse circulation drilling at Horn Island Gold Resource

Alice Queen Limited has kickstarted reverse circulation (RC) drilling at its Horn Island Gold Resource in the Torres Strait.  The precious metals explorer has designed a 49-hole, tightly-spaced program to test the ability to define gold distribution at the half-million-ounce inferred resource from grade control spaced data.  As this campaign could economically benefit a potential mining operation at Horn Island, Alice Queen has postponed its scoping study’s completion to October to factor in results from this program.  Once the 49-hole grade control campaign runs its course, around 648 metres of RC drilling will take place over Horn Island’s legacy gold stockpiles to better understand their value and contribution to a theoretical gold inventory.  Drill bit turns at Horn Island Alice Queen managing director Andrew Buxton said: “It’s exciting to have the drill bit turning again at Horn Island. “These RC drill programs have the potential to significantly improve the underlying economics of a potential future mining operation. “Accordingly, we are excited to have these programs underway and to get the results flowing into the current Horn Island scoping study. “In addition, the Horn Island exploration team, led by Queensland exploration manager, Adrian Hell, is also busy developing aggressive exploration programs to make further discoveries at Horn Island. “These plans will be announced to the market shortly.” RC drilling begins As part of its new exploration phase at Horn Island, Alice Queen is prepared to drill 49 RC holes, for 1,960 metres across a 5-metre by-5-metre grid. The drill bit will dig 40 metres down and test the ability in grade control to delineate waste and ore boundaries as part of the scoping study. Once this is complete, a 43-hole preliminary RC program will commence across Horn Island’s legacy stockpiles, established during the prior gold operations at the Torres Strait asset. This campaign is designed to provide an initial assessment of low-grade gold within the stockpiles, which are estimated to have a volume of nearly 3.4 million cubic metres. Although this program presents a degree of uncertainty, if the evaluation proves successful, it may benefit potential mining operations as an additional future gold inventory. Once the RC campaigns run their course, Alice Queen will update the market.