The company said the same hole also contained a 6-metre section running at 5.2g/t gold, 157g/t silver and 27.9% lead-zinc from 116 metres, as well as a two-metre interval grading 6.2% copper from 123 metres. A shallower intercept returned 6 metres assaying 2g/t gold, 20g/t silver and 0.9% copper from 84 metres, demonstrating multiple mineralised lenses over more than 220 metres of strike at the Hillston zone within Evergreen.
The results form part of a 21-hole reverse-circulation campaign targeting the Western Discovery zone, where a previous discovery hole returned a 17-metre intercept grading 5.3g/t gold. The company is working towards a maiden resource estimate for the Evergreen deposit.
Australian Gold and Copper managing director Glen Diemar said: “This is an exceptional hole. The combination of 6m at 5.2g/t gold, 157g/t silver, 1.0% copper and 27.9% lead-zinc, followed by a copper-rich interval of 2m at 6.2% copper, is an outstanding result at such shallow depths. The high-grade western discovery zone remains open along strike and at depth.”
Other assays from the first 18 holes included 9 metres grading 1.6g/t gold and 58g/t silver from 90 metres, including a 5-metre section of 2.4g/t gold and 94g/t silver, and 6 metres grading 1.4g/t gold and 53g/t silver from 95 metres. Assays from previously unsampled historical diamond core also returned a 7-metre interval of 3.1g/t gold and 18g/t silver from 100 metres.
Australian Gold and Copper held $5.9 million in cash and no debt as of the end of September. Regulatory approvals for a third drilling phase have been granted, and drilling is due to resume later this quarter. A higher-capacity rig is scheduled to arrive to test extensions of the high-grade zones. An induced polarisation geophysics survey is underway at the nearby Mount B target.
The company’s Evergreen project sits within a 2,600-square-kilometre landholding in the South Cobar region. Its Achilles discovery, 30 kilometres away, had an initial 38.5-million-ounce silver-equivalent resource defined in 2024. It also holds the Junee project to the south.