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Murray Ward
Aureka Limited has officially got the drill rods spinning at its historic St Arnaud Comstock gold project in Victoria, wheeling a diamond rig into the old Walkers pit to unlock near-term production potential.
The fresh program has been designed to build out a fast-tracked pathway towards first production as the junior explorer runs the slide rule over the project’s underlying economics.
Top of the priority list, Aureka will chase up some spectacular shallow historical hits within the immediate target area.
The project’s near-surface pedigree was previously highlighted by drilling in the mid-1980’s, which jagged a 14-metre interval grading a hefty 7.2 grams per tonne (g/t) gold from 18m, – a whopping 100.8 gram-metre cumulative intercept.
‘We pursue the ambition of possible first portfolio production from Comstock.’
Aureka Limited managing director James Gurry
Other vintage hits sitting in the crosshairs include 2.2m running at an eye-catching 27.4g/t gold from 63.2m, with a further hole clocking a 3.1-metre slice landing a tasty 17.24g/t gold from 22.5m.
Recent boots-on-the-ground work confirmed the gold is still talking, with a grab sample chipped from the western pit wall in April returning an impressive assay of 6.04g/t gold.
“The company says the campaign is a targeted, six-week blitz designed to rapidly build confidence around the deposit. The program will see the rig punch out 1000 metres across six short holes, with each hole averaging about 100 metres in depth.
The tightly spaced holes are aiming to confirm legacy datasets and potentially lift the current 100 per cent inferred JORC resource into higher-confidence classifications.
To keep the numbers real when compiling the resource model, Aureka will use a standard 0.5g/t gold cut-off grade alongside a conservative 30g/t top cut to keep high-grade spikes from distorting the broader picture.
Aureka Limited managing director James Gurry said: “It is pleasing to see an exciting infill program now underway at Comstock where we reported multiple instances of visible and high-grade gold in 2025.”
Geological mapping has indicated the true width of these targets could be as much as 80 per cent of the downhole drill runs, throwing open three highly lucrative possibilities for the project.
Firstly, it proves the underground gold mineralisation is genuinely thick rather than a narrow structural illusion. Secondly, it confirms the geos’ drilling geometry is hitting the targets dead-on and thirdly, it suggests a highly favourable, low waste-to-ore strip ratio should the company elect to push the button on open-cut mining.
While Comstock may offer a quick cash-flow angle through its existing resource of 56,500 ounces of gold grading 1.21g/t, it’s still only one leg of Aureka’s broader Victorian asset strategy.
The company’s flagship asset is its Irvine gold project sitting in the Stawell Corridor, which boasts a substantial inferred resource of 304,000 ounces of gold and is just 16 kilometres from the operating 5.3-million-ounce Stawell gold mine. The project is also prospective for antimony.
Aureka also holds other Victorian regional assets, including the Jubilee gold exploration project near Ballarat and the Morning Bill gold and base metals project 25 kilometres southwest of Ararat.
Moving forward, the geological data gleaned from this current campaign will feed directly into concept and scoping studies aimed at defining technical and financial forecasts.
To significantly de-risk the processing route, management has already engaged toll-milling specialists, Core Prospecting, to investigate trucking ore to nearby regional plants holding spare capacity.
With drill rods actively turning and a clear line of sight towards development, Aureka is moving its pieces across the board at a rapid rate.
It appears the junior explorer is wasting no time translating its rich geological heritage into significant Victorian gold ounces.
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