Siren Gold Limited announced that it has been granted an exploration permit that covers part of the expired Globe Progress mining permit at Reefton. This tenement is in the centre of the 35km long structural corridor that hosts the largest mines in the Reefton Goldfield and extends Siren's very promising gold -stibnite mineralisation a further 10kms from Auld Creek to Big River. The Globe Progress Mine has produced over 1.1Moz @ 6g/t Au, the largest mine in the Reefton Goldfield, followed by Blackwater (740koz @ 14.2g/t Au). The Globe Progress Mine produced 420koz @ 12.2g/t Au until 1926 when it closed. The mine extended down to 420m below the surface where the mineralisation was offset by the Chemist Shop Fault and the displaced mineralisation was never found. Oceana Gold Limited (OGL) re-opened the mine as an open pit in 2007 and mined the low grade remnant mineralisation down to around 200m when the mine closed in 2015, when the gold price was ~A$1,500 compared to over A$2,600 currently. OGL extracted approximately 700koz @ 2g/t Au, taking the total gold production to around 1.1Moz @ 6g/t Au. OGL surrendered the Globe Progress mining permit in 2019. New Zealand Petroleum and Minerals (NZP&M) split the mining permit into two areas. The area containing the Globe Progress open pit, processing plant, tailings storage facility (TSF) and waste rock stacks was reserved until 6 December 2023, while site rehabilitation is being completed. The remaining permit area became open ground as Newly Available Acreage (NAA) in October 2020. Under NAA the ground is opened for applications before a set close-off date. Applications are then reviewed by NZP&M and the permit granted to the applicant they consider to have the best work program to evaluate the mineral potential. Siren was granted an exploration permit for the non-reserved area on 14 December 2022 for an intial period of 5 years. The Cumberland permit comprises the northern and southern areas of the previous Globe Progress mining permit. The Cumberland permit joins Siren's Big River, Golden Point and Reefton South
permits and abuts the Federation Mining permit, where they are currently developing the Snowy River underground mine to extract around 700koz of gold below the historic Blackwater mine. Gold bearing reefs in the Cumberland project area were first discovered at Supreme in 1872 and mining proceeded from then until 1923 when Sir Francis Drake mine closed. Relative to the rest of the Reefton Goldfield, the Cumberland mines were undercapitalised and worked in small and limiting claims. There was some major development in the area with a 1.2km long adit driven in from Rainey Creek under the Supreme and Inkerman mines to Inkerman West mine. A 600m adit was driven under the Golden Lead mine. Total production from the area was 44,626 oz of gold from 97,993 tonnes of ore at an average grade of 14.2 g/t Au. The mineralisation in the Cumberland permit extends for 3kms south of the Globe Progress mine and is open to the west (under cover) and south. This area lies along the main structural corridor that hosts all the larger mines in the Reefton Goldfield and links to Siren's very promising Auld Creek Au-Sb prospect. The gold and stibnite mineralisation extends for 10kms from Auld Creek south into the Globe Progress Mine, including the Globe Deeps area below the open pit, through Souvenir, Supreme and Big River. A total of 77 drillholes for a total of 10,933m have been completed. The Supreme soil geochemistry shows a strong arsenic anomaly trending SE under the cover. The strong broad arsenic and stibnite soil anomaly at the Golden Lead /A1 in the southern end of the permit remains
unexplained but is associated with stockwork gold mineralisation at A1. This anomaly abuts the cover to the east and it is likely that the mineralisation will extend under the cover and could link up with Supreme and potentially Big River. An ionic leach survey will be undertaken over the cover to see if mineralisation under the cover can be detected. The A1 anomaly also remains open to the south. Supreme gold mineralisation is a similar style to the Globe-Progress deposit, with high-grade quartz breccia, pug and disseminated sulphides. Supreme contains three sub-parallel mineralised shoots that have been traced down dip for approximately 200 metres and are open at depth. The shoots plunge moderately to the SE, with an average thickness of approximately 12 metres. Significant intersections are shown in Table 2 and include 10m @ 3.5g/t Au and 14m @ 3.5g/t Au (RDD013), 11m @ 3.2g/t Au (RDD017), 13m @ 2.6g/t Au (RDD018), 9.5m @ 2.3g/t Au (RDD021) and 9.5m @ 4.1g/t Au (RDD025). The Supreme drill samples were generally not analysed for stibnite, which will be undertaken in First Quarter 2023. A1 high-grade quartz reefs located within a shear zone extends for 3kms from Inkerman south through Gallant, Sir Francis Drake, Merrijigs and Exchange group of workings. At Inkerman, gold mineralisation is primarily contained within lenticular quartz lodes with similar styles and grades to the Blackwater mine, however, there is a small halo of arsenopyrite-gold mineralisation. The reef extended for 100m on surface and was mined down to 97m below surface, with a vein thickness ranging from 0.3 to 2.1m. Drillhole 97RDD022 was drilled below the old mine workings and intersected 9m @ 6.1g/t Au from 107m indicating that the mineralisation remains open at depth. Gallant contains a shear hosted, 1m-5m thick quartz vein, that extends for over 300m and dips steeply east and west. Diamond hole GLA001 was drilled to the west and appears to have drilled obliquely down a steeply west dipping reef.