Torque fires up drill rigs on back of ASX listing

WA junior gold explorer Torque Metals has listed its shares on the Australian Securities Exchange after squaring away an oversubscribed $5.5 million IPO that gives new impetus to its quest to unearth further gold riches in the world-class Boulder-Lefroy Fault Zone province. The Perth-based company has hit the ASX boards at a full gallop having secured two drill rigs and already kicked off a 4,000m reverse circulation program at its flagship Paris project about 120km south-south-east of Kalgoorlie.

The new block of stock issued under Torque’s strongly supported recent capital raise offer – totalling 27.5 million shares at 20¢ apiece – expands its issued capital structure to a very tightly held 62.8 million shares, not including about 12.6 million options that expire over the next three years.

Paris project vendor and private operator, Austral Pacific, has emerged as the major shareholder in Torque with a 9.26 per cent interest.

With the ASX listing now complete, we are moving quickly and seamlessly into an extensive exploration program. We are hitting the ground running at Paris where we have two RC drill rigs operating. I would like to … thank all our existing investors and welcome all new shareholders.

Paris sits along strike from a stellar cast of famous gold mines, including the Super Pit, that also straddle the prolific gold-bearing Boulder-Lefroy Fault structural corridor. The structure boasts a mammoth gold endowment of more than 70 million ounces.

The brownfields Paris project, made up of nine granted mining licences and spanning about 143 square kilometres, has the large mature St Ives, Higginsville and Norseman gold mining centres as regional neighbours in the fault zone.

Austral produced 18,232 ounces of gold from two small open-cut mines called Paris and nearby HHH more than four years ago. The oxide ore extracted from the open pits yielded an enviable recovered grade averaging about 4 grams per tonne gold.

In April last year, Torque tabled a JORC compliant indicated mineral resource estimate for Paris – incorporating the Paris and HHH deposits – of 314,000 tonnes at an average grade of 3.24 g/t for 32,700 ounces of contained gold.

With past drilling having generally probed only as far as about 50m deep, the Paris project area remains vastly under-explored, management says.

Torque’s initial RC drilling will be largely focused on the potential for resource expansion in the brownfields areas around and beneath the existing shallow open pits at Paris and HHH, testing for extensions of known ore shoots. Nearby drill-ready targets will also get a guernsey.

Gold mineralisation at Paris and HHH remains open down dip and along strike with indications that gold-bearing parallel mineralised structures may also occur in the vicinity, according to the company.

Torque estimates known mineralisation, which consists of a vein array with west-striking ore shoots controlled by the main west-north-west striking Paris Shear, extends over about 1.1km within the overall Paris gold mining area.

First assay results of the current RC drilling campaign at Paris are expected in August this year.

The company has previously indicated it hopes to increase the combined Paris-HHH resource to greater than 100,000 ounces of gold in the first 12 months after listing.

Following on from its successful IPO that was swamped with applications in excess of $7 million, Torque’s initial drilling results will be closely watched by WA gold punters.

Is your ASX-listed company doing something interesting? Contact: matt.birney@wanews.com.au