SA’s Gawler gold region lighting up with production plans and exploration results aplenty

The S&P All Ordinaries Index will take on a deeper golden hue on September 22 when a long list of gold stocks – both producers and developers – get to join the club on the rebalancing of the index taking effect.

It stands to reason that there should be lots of new gold entrants in the index as gold’s run up to record levels has led to turbo-charged trade in the gold stocks, and turbo-charged growth in their market caps.

One of the new entrants on September 22 that reflects all that is Barton Gold (ASX:BGD). The $15 million IPO in 2021 with a $45m market cap on listing now has a market of $216m (96c) for an all up value gain of 380%.

Having said that, it was “only” a 26c stock when last mentioned here back in January. While the surge in gold prices this year has played a major role in Barton’s dramatic gain in value, so too has been the maturing of the company’s gold production plans in South Australia’s Gawler Craton.

When it came to the market in 2021 Barton’s stated strategy was to consolidate and grow the known but overlooked gold deposits in the Gawler and eventually become a gold producer from a hub and spoke mining and processing strategy.

It is now closing in on that ambition with first production to come from the currently mothballed Challenger mill in the central Gawler to be followed by the development of a new mine and mill at the Tunkillia project some 200km from Challenger, along with high-grade contributions from the historical gold field at Tarcoola, 70km from Tunkillia.

More deposits/projects have been added to the story, which now has Barton planning a future as a 150,000oz a year producer, starting out from the end of next year at 30,000oz a year at Challenger and later at 120,000oz a year from Tunkillia.

It is a pathway that leads to a multi-billion market cap if all the pieces fall into place, and the gold price holds up.

Ownership of the Gawler’s only mill at Challenger, with another to follow at Tunkillia, gives Barton strategic leverage in the further consolidation of the Gawler in the same way the mine and mill owners in the Kalgoorlie, Murchison and Leonora-Laverton regions of WA have been building bigger production stories, spurred on by record gold prices.

Compared to those WA regions, the consolidation story in the Gawler in the modern era – it has a gold production history dating back to the 1800s - is only in its infancy.

Barton’s trailblazing work in recent times in the remote area when everyone was looking to the WA goldfields means it has the lead role in the Gawler becoming a large-scale gold production region.

But a bunch of juniors are angling to become part of the bigger gold story emerging in the Gawler, be it through exploration and development on their own accounts, as part of the region’s consolidation, or through a combination of the two.

Indiana:

There was a time when Indiana (ASX:IDA) thought its future lay with the Ntaka Hill nickel project in Tanzania.

But the project was effectively expropriated by the government, forcing Indiana and its partners to sue.

The international court action was won by the partners and the government had to cough up $US90m in the settlement.

Fast forward and the end result was a capital return to Indiana shareholders and the company holding remaining cash of $37m, including a portion of which is preserved pending resolution of a legal action, leaving the size of a potential second capital return up in the air.

But it is clear that as a junior explorer, Indiana is as cashed-up as they come. Now sporting a 4c share price for a market cap of $26m, the company has diverted its attention post Ntaka Hill to gold in the Gawler Craton.

Indiana’s flagship Minos gold project covers a big ground position in the central Gawler where it will be testing multiple gold targets along the fertile Lake Labyrinth shear zone next month.

The AC drilling program is following up encouraging gold-in-calcrete results (it was how Challenger was found) at the Minos, Ariadne and Company Well prospects within the broader project area.

Assay results from recent RC drilling at the Minos prospect are expected in coming weeks and core from some diamond hole drilling is being prepared for assaying. Indiana MD Matt Bowles will give a full rundown on the Gawler campaign at the RRS Gold Coast Conference next week (Sept 17-18).

Auravelle Metals:

Auravelle (ASX:AUV) boss Andrew Muir is also down to present at the conference.

Auravelle? It is the new name for Sipa Resources, the hardy explorer that battled away across endless projects in WA looking for the game-changing discovery since 1987.

But the new name comes with a new focus on Gawler gold for the junior which last traded at 1.6c for a market cap of $8.5m. So the leverage to exploration success it had when it listed 38 years ago is still there.

It is early days but the company’s Gawler work is showing lots of promise. It is now into its second drilling program in the Gawler where drilling at the Sheoak prospect at the Nuckulla Hill project area recently returned 8m at 10.3g/t gold, including 4m at 16.2g/t.

A number of follow up RC holes at Sheoak will be followed by a maiden campaign at the Tunkillia North prospect.

It too is one to watch as it will be testing a 5km by 5km gold-in-calcrete anomaly some 10km north of Barton’s 1.6m oz Tunkillia gold deposit.

Marmota:

Marmota (SSX:MEU) has been creating interest of late thanks to the high-grade hits coming from its Greenewood prospect in the Gawler, about 30km north-east of Barton’s Challenger mine and mill.

It last traded at 4.9c for a market cap of $57m, with the emerging story at Greenewood (more assays are pending) coming in addition to the emerging production potential of its flagship Aurora Tank discovery 35km to the south.

Both Greenewood and Aurora Tank are included in what Marmotoa calls the Arc of Six deposits flanking a gravity anomaly in the north-west Gawler.

The company has also flagged it could go down the low capex open-pit/heap leach gold production route at Aurora Tank in a master of its own destiny sort of move.