Xtract Resources shares LON:XTR were dropping today as investors digested the latest set of assay results from its Bushranger Project. Highlights from six exploratory holes on Bushranger were published this morning, including 2m at 15.5g/t Au from 191m and 18m at 0.34% CuEq from 388m.
Bushranger is a copper-gold project located in New South Wales. It occurs within the Rockley-Gulgong Belt of the Macquarie Arc within the Lachlan Fold Belt, also known as the Lachlan Orogen, which developed at the edge of the palaeo Australian Plate between 450 Ma and 380 Ma years ago.
“An eclectic group of drill hole results”
“This is an eclectic group of drill hole results showing some degree of mineralisation and some meaningful gold values,” said Colin Bird, Executive Chairman. “The holes were mainly located in the area between Ascot and Racecourse testing the new geophysical anomalies. Whilst these outlying holes do not in themselves indicate significant extensions, we continue to drill and model to better understand both Ascot and the area between Ascot and Racecourse. The modelling for the primary Racecourse open pit is advancing satisfactorily.”
Xtract said that the majority of these holes were exploratory in nature to test for extensions of the known mineralisation and were not drilled into the main Racecourse resource. Xtract has always been clear that the project is “highly prospective”. In April 2020 it said that recent drilling had more than doubled the Racecourse mineral resource, but said “it remains open down dip and down plunge, suggesting the resource will increase substantially in size.”
Globally, porphyry-related copper-gold deposits commonly occur in clusters and this is thought to be true of the Lachlan Fold Belt, Australia’s only world class porphyry copper-gold province, where Xtract is drilling.
Shares down 10% as market digests assay results
Xtract said that previous exploration had identified several porphyry intrusions, some already known to be associated with copper and gold mineralisation, as well as multiple geochemical and IP geophysical anomalies over a strike length of 10km. The most advanced prospect within these is the Racecourse prospect.
Shares in Xtract Resources traded down over 10% on the news. At the time of writing, they were trading at around 5.07p. The stock established a 52 week low of 3.15p on 6 July last year. Subsequent to that optimism crept back in, driving the share price to over 7p briefly in February. Shares are down over 16% on the 30 day view however.
Volumes picked up substantially on the news, with close to 7m shares changing hands in the morning. This equates to volumes we last saw early last month.
Xtract Resources still looks like it has plenty of cash to play with, and was carrying around £8m in debt at last count. For the six months ending June 2021 revenue was down 75% and net losses were up from £187,000 to £2.2m. Project expenses increased 15%.
It should be noted that Xtract Resources has a number of other projects under its belt, including the Manica Gold Project in Mozambique and the Eureka Copper Project sited in the Zambian Copperbelt district. A full year earnings release is due on 8 June.
