Novo Resources Corp. provide an update on drilling results at the Becher Project, which is part of the Egina earn-in and joint venture (Egina JV) with De Grey Mining. De Grey commenced AC and RC drilling at the Becher Project in Fourth Quarter 2023, testing the Heckmair and Lowe intrusions, and the Irvine and Bonatti shear corridors, with over 10,500 m completed to date.

The Egina Gold Camp is Novo?s highly prospective gold belt in the Pilbara and includes the priority Becher and Nunyerry projects. This belt comprises a series of structurally complex, gold-fertile corridors, hosted by rocks of the Mallina Basin in the north and mafic /ultramafic sequences further south. These corridors trend towards De Grey?s 12.7 Moz Au (JORC 2012) Hemi Gold Project1 to the north and northeast.

Novo?s tenure forms a contiguous package of approx. 80 km strike length directly along this trend and has been one of the main focus areas for Novo?s exploration programs over the last eighteen months, culminating in the Egina JV with De Grey and delineation of the Nunyerry North gold prospect. Novo?s early-stage reconnaissance work at Egina successfully identified the Becher Project as highly prospective and a high priority.

The Company commenced AC drilling in late 2022 continuing into 2023, generating excellent results and indicators of potential discovery success. In June 2023, De Grey recognised the potential of Becher as a key growth asset and entered into the Egina JV under which De Grey will fund an exploration program over a four-year period for a spend of up to AUD 25 million, earning a 50% interest in the project. Since commencing field work on the Egina JV ground in August 2023, De Grey has completed 7,536 m of AC drilling (271 collars) across several greenfields targets.

In addition, ongoing interpretation of Novo?s previous AC program yielded three priority targets based on gold and base metal anomalism, warranting a follow up program of 4,154 m of RC drilling (29 collars), which was completed at the Lowe, Heckmair and Irvine targets. No significant results (>0.1 g/t Au) were returned from AC drilling at Irvine or Bonatti, although RC hole MSRC0030 at Irvine returned 1 m @ 6.3 g/t Au. Lowe Lowe is located ~20 km WSW of Hemi.

The prospect includes an interpreted 5.2 km long, synclinal layered sill, fractionated from pyroxenite at the base up to gabbro and diorite. It is substantially thicker on the northern side of the syncline and likely truncated by a fault and juxtaposed with altered metasediment to the south. A small RC drilling program of 10 holes (1,786 m) was completed by De Grey in late 2023.

This drilling intercepted mineralisation in two holes in what is interpreted to be the same structure. 8 m at 4.7 g/t Au from 97 m was intersected in hole MSRC0031, and 4 m at 0.6 g/t Au from 144 m was intersected in MSRC0032. Mineralisation is hosted within strongly foliated and sheared pyroxenite and gabbro with prominent sericite alteration, quartz veining and pyrite.

Planning of follow up drilling in 2024 is underway. After commencing the earn-in with Novo, De Grey undertook a comprehensive program of field reconnaissance and re-splitting 4 m composite samples of historic drilling where anomalous gold or base metals had been intercepted. Interpretation of geophysics, geochemistry and geological data highlighted elevated gold and Pb-Zn-Ag values in AC drilling within the Heckmair intrusive body, associated with a 1.5 km long, WNW-trending fault zone which De Grey interpreted from aeromagnetic data.

A follow-up RC program comprising 19 holes (2,368 m) returned strong base metal results including: 10 m @ 0.12 g/t Au, 29.7 g/t Ag, 0.3% Cu, 1.5% Pb and 1.8% Zn from 40 m (MSRC0016), including 3 m @ 0.20 g/t Au, 59.8 g/t Ag, 0.9% Cu, 2.4% Pb and 2.2% Zn from 47 m, 24 m @ 0.2 g/t Au, 13.2 g/t Ag, 0.1% Cu, 1.0% Pb and 0.1% Zn in hole MSRC0017 from 105 m (MSRC0017), including 6 m @ 0.48 g/t Au, 20.8 g/t Ag, 0.2% Cu, 1.4% Pb and 2.8% Zn from 105 m, The best gold intercept from the RC drilling was 2 m at 2.8 g/t Au in hole MSRC0013. De Grey note other deposits and prospects within the Mallina Basin show that base metal anomalism can be associated with gold mineralisation. The Heckmair Fault shows evidence for broad-scale fluid flow within a fault conduit with favorable scale, and De Grey considers it to be a priority target, with follow up RC drilling planned for 2024.

AC drilling is utilised as a first pass technique testing for gold mineralisation and anomalous pathfinder geochemistry in basement rocks under cover. The drilling methodology is rapid and low cost, with a low impact footprint, enabling large systematic programs to be completed in a cost effective and timely manner. One metre AC drill samples are collected from the drill rig through a cyclone and placed on the ground in piles for geological quantitative and qualitative logging.

These piles are then speared as four-meter composites. All AC chip samples were sent to ALS in Perth, Western Australia and each sample was dried, split, crushed and pulverised to 85% passing 75µm. 11 elements assayed with aqua regia mass spectrometry (ALS Lab Code ME-MS43) with an additional 29 elements assayed with aqua regia ICP-AES finish (ALS Lab Code ME-ICP43), and trace-level gold by 25 g aqua regia (ICP-MS). All aircore holes end with a 1 m bottom of hole sample using the ME-MS61 method with Au by 30 g fire assay (Au-ICP21).

Anomalous aircore composites, greater than 0.1 ppm gold over 4 m, are re-split to 1 m samples and were assayed using 30 g Au fire assay with ICP finish (ALS Lab Code, Au-ICP21) and high-grade results >10 ppm Au were assayed by fire assay and gravimetric finish (ALS Lab Code Au-GRA21). Multielement analysis was conducted using four acid digest followed by ICP-MS finish for 61 elements (ALS Lab Code ME-MS61?).