In a recent update, Alice Queen (ASX:AQX) Founder and Managing Director Andy Buxton shares that exploration continues at the company Viani Gold project in Fiji.
“Trenching results simulate drilling results almost perfectly, with peak 20 grams of gold per ton. (d) The ratio of gold and silver is 1:1. It’s consistent,” he told Investing News Network, adding that Alice Queen has only tested a small part of what it knows could become a larger system.
Viani is located on Vanua Levu, Fiji’s second largest island. Previous exploration at the Dakuniba prospect indicates the potential to host a high-grade, vein-style epithermal gold system underpinning a 3 kilometer long gold-silver-arsenic-antimony-lead-zinc-barium anomaly.
Buxton said, “What we’ve done here shows that low-cost trenching is valuable, and we plan to start doing more (trenching). In the near term, we hope this will give us about 10 to 14 high-priority drill targets.”
Buxton said there are only two gold mines currently operating in Fiji, one of which is the Cornerstone Vatukoula mine, a 75-year-old mine that has produced 7 million ounces of gold and currently has reserves of 3 million ounces. The second is Lion One Metals’ (TSXV:LIO,OTCQX:LOMLF) Tuvatu mine, which recently entered the production ramp-up phase.
In response to a question on the difference between working in Fiji versus Australia he said, “Fiji has a long history of gold mining. Whereas Australia has more mines, the nature of things in Fiji is high-grade underground mines.”
The founder said that Viani’s activities are being paralleled by the development of the 16.7 million tonne Alice Queen horn island gold project in Queensland, where catalysts include an updated scoping study and an updated mineral resource estimate.
Watch the full interview with Andy Buxton, founder and managing director of Alice Queen, above.
