SCRATCH the surface of the hundreds of companies out there and you sometimes find a prospect that could be a gem in the rough. By Michael Weir - RESOURCESTOCKS*
Surface sampling has identified gold mineralisation at Sazhen within the Southern Bayankol Area in Kazakhstan.
New Gold Aura managing director Ken Chapple
The fine art of investing is all about finding value for money, which in a booming market is easier said than done. The share prices of many stocks listed on the Australian Securities Exchange are running away.
Queensland-based Gold Aura is a junior explorer whose projects in Australia, Papua New Guinea, Kazakhstan and China cover a range of commodities and show great potential.
It had a share price of just 11c and a market capitalisation of $11.4 million at press time. A little success with any one of its projects could significantly alter those numbers.
Managing director Ken Chapple says Gold Aura is unashamedly a junior explorer. With that comes a tremendous opportunity for investors, he says. "All our projects are at quite early, but equally very exciting, stages of development," he told .
"Each one of these projects, on its own, is also a potential company maker for Gold Aura, so the blue-sky upside is quite apparent."
Chapple said Gold Aura was focused on a global search for world-class mineral deposits. "This approach has enabled the company to assemble a portfolio of projects which have outstanding potential," he said.
"Gold Aura has an experienced board and management team capable of advancing the projects from their current exploration stage into successful commercial mining projects."
One of the most significant events in Gold Aura's history occurred in late 2006 at its Croydon Project in northwest Queensland. The company discovered a potentially extensive polymetallic vein-style mineralised system under about 110 metres of cover rocks at the project.
Discovered in the drill samples were significant concentrations of zinc, silver, tin, copper and lead and some gold.
The two discovery holes are some 850m apart, indicating the potential size of the discovery, while there was an indication from the drilling of at least an apparent 400m thickness to the system.
A 133m intersection in the first hole returned 18.3gpt silver, 1.1% zinc, 0.15% tin and 0.35% copper. Of particular interest is a 5m interval of 8% zinc, 180gpt silver, 0.57% copper and 0.58% tin. A 1m intersection in the second hole returned 3.87gpt gold.
"This discovery is something very exciting for Gold Aura," Chapple said. "It is very early days but the results to date show that we are quite possibly onto something quite large there.
"It will take time to really understand what we have here, and investors need to appreciate that it takes time to prove up world-class ore bodies, but the rewards can be great."
Chapple said the discovery holes were testing a magnetic anomaly located on the margin of a regional gravity high. The geophysical patter was not dissimilar to that displayed by highly successful South Australian base metal projects.
Gold Aura has planned an aggressive drilling program to learn more about the system and to search for higher concentrations of minerals.
The company has made tenement applications totalling nearly 2000 square kilometres to pick up ground with similar prospective magnetic anomalies in the Croydon region.
"This area has now become a major focus for the company," he said.
"It is going to be a very exciting period for the company and its investors as we get to the bottom of what we have really discovered here."
While Croydon is the company's flagship project, Gold Aura has not lost any of its passion for its other projects.
Gold Aura has been undertaking a 60-hole, 4000m infill drilling program at the Gameta Gold project on Fergusson Island, Papua New Guinea, since late 2006. To date 11 holes have been drilled to a completed depth of nearly 1500m.
The project is a joint venture with Canadian-listed Yamana Gold and is operated by Gold Aura.
Two gold deposits have been found within the project area, Wapolu in the northwest corner of the island and Gameta in the northeast corner.
Apart from bringing the resource to JORC indicated and measured status, the challenge at Gameta is to increase both the resource size and the grade.
Early drilling results have indicated a substantial downward thickening in the central part of the resource, with a recent intersection from the infill drilling program returning a respectable 65m grading 1.22gpt gold.
The thickening of the mineralisation has been noted on other sections and if confirmed by assay results we will be well on the way to increasing the resource size. The prospects for an increase in grade have been boosted by recent intersections of 2.79m at 35.3gpt gold, 28.6gpt silver and 1.94m at 12.2gpt gold and 14.1gpt silver.
"We have a substantial gold resource at Gameta," Chapple said.
"If results continue to be encouraging, a feasibility study into possible commercial gold production could start by the first half of 2008.
"With the gold price where it is today and a positive outlook for the precious metal, it would be an exciting time to be developing a gold project."
Elsewhere, Gold Aura's 80%-owned subsidiary Gold Aura Kazakhstan is actively exploring an area where previous work had discovered significant surficial gold mineralisation over a zone 7.5km long by 2.5km wide.
The area is located within the Central Asian Black Shale Gold Belt that contains some of the biggest gold deposits in the world, including the largest, the 170 million-ounce Muruntau deposit and the 17 millionoz Kumtor resource.
In late 2006, Gold Aura signed an agreement, subject to confirmation of the mineral rights, to buy an initial 60% equity in a high-grade gold and base metal project in the Tapajos region of Para State in Northern Brazil.
The Tapajos Mineral Province covers almost 170,000sq.km within the Amazon Region of northern Brazil.
"While traditionally the area has been renowned for its alluvial deposits, more recently the region has been recognised as a major hard-rock gold province," Chapple said.
"It is widely believed that the Tapajos region has the potential to host a variety of high-grade, medium-to-large, open pittable oxide deposits and underground sulphide deposits."
Chapple said the company had access to a number of drill rigs and was well placed to push ahead with its planned drilling campaigns. It recently completed a placement to Martin Place Securities to help in funding the programs.
"Our projects are there and aggressive evaluation programs have either been commenced or are planned for commencement," he said.
For investors in Gold Aura, it is now a case of sitting back and looking for results in the next six to 12 months that could shape the future of the company.
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The article caught my attention and the posts on here are very informative. Thanks for your views everyone.
I will put on watchlist for now, sounds like it could be a great little stock.
GOA Price at posting:
0.0¢ Sentiment: Buy Disclosure: Not Held
