There was exciting news today on the ASX as Rumble Resources Limited (ASX: RTR) released its December 2020 Quarterly Activities Report. The report deep-dives into drilling activity already carried across four key projects, and outlines targeted drilling across three further projects, which will commence in the March 2021 quarter.
The four projects already completed are the Western Queen, Lamil, Braeside, and the Munarra Gully projects, all located in Tier 1 regions of the state. Taken together, they comprise an astonishing 40,000 metres of drilling activity.
Over the coming weeks and months, Rumble’s shareholders can look forward to hearing about the four projects’ drilling results as they come back from the assay lab. Indeed, it is rare for a company listed on the ASX to have four projects already signed off and waiting for assay results. As such, investor anticipation is bound to be running high and great things are expected.
Speaking exclusively to The Assay, Shane Sikora, managing director of Rumble Resources Ltd, said: “Our strategy is to generate, and drill test, a pipeline of projects that provide the capability to deliver world-class discoveries.
“Over the past three years, our award-winning technical director Brett Keillor, who was twice AMEC’s ‘Prospector of the Year’, has been critically reviewing projects against stringent criteria and assembling a portfolio of seven highly prospective base and precious metal projects located in Tier 1 regions of Western Australia. We are at an exciting phase of our strategy as our projects have advanced to the point where all our drill programmes have the capability of making discoveries.
“2020 was a transformational year for Rumble as we were able to attract major investment. This enabled the company to aggressively execute our strategy, ending the year with four projects drilled and all with assays in the labs. This sets up an exciting start to 2021 where shareholders can look forward to a constant news flow from the impending assay results, providing multiple near-term catalysts for a significant rerating.”
Exploring multiple avenues to discovery
Western Queen Gold Project
The largest of Rumble’s drilling programmes to be completed in 2020 is the Western Queen Gold Project, located 110km north-west of Mt Magnet in Western Australia’s Yalgoo mineral field. Western Queen hosts the entire Warra Warra north-south trending mineralized greenstone belt, which is 35km long and up to 3km wide. Within this belt is a series of high-grade gold structures, including two mined deposits for a combined historic production of 880,000t at 7.6g/t Au for 215,000oz. Importantly, there are three gold processing mills within a 110km radius of the project, with capacities ranging from 1.2Mtpa to 2.5Mtpa, providing processing options for gold resources that Rumble defines.
During the December quarter of 2020, Rumble completed Phase 3 drilling for two of the project’s tenements. A total of 236 holes were drilled for aggregate of 22,784m, focusing on multiple high-grade gold shoot targets. These include air core, RC, RC pre-collars, and diamond cores, and the activity has created 6,000 assay samples which are yet to be reported.
Partial drill results that have been announced at the Western Queen Central Prospects include the Duke Prospect, in which three new high-grade gold shoots have been inferred, producing 8m at 26.27g/t Au from 14m, and 6m at 25.87 g/t Au from 48m. Results from the Western Queen Central Deeps, the Baron Zone, the Baron Deeps, and the Marquis Zone have also showed promise. There are still results outstanding for the Western Queen South Deposit, but current indications are for 832,000t at 3.1g/t Au for 83,000oz. Rumble will release further information about this deposit once assay results are returned.
Lamil Gold-Copper JV Project
Rumble’s next project to complete its drilling programme is the Lamil Project, a A$10M joint venture between Rumble and AIC Mines (ASX: A1M). The site sits between the Nifty Cu mine and the large Telfer Au-Cu mine in Paterson Province, East Pilbara, both of which are situated in Tier 1 land that produced the recent Winu Copper-Gold-Silver Deposit, discovered by Rio Tinto.
In the December quarter of 2020, joint venture partner AIC Mines completed its maiden drill programme at the Lamil Dome Prospect, which has a similar dome size, trend, and inferred host rocks to the Telfer Dome (32Moz Au, 1Mt Cu resource), a large dome structure lying 30km to the north east. This took in a total of 8,591m of AC/RC and 2,840m of diamond drilling. Although assays are still pending, the drilling has identified basement lithologies and structural characteristics prospective for IOCG systems.
Braeside Zn-Pb-Cu-AG-Au-V Project
Rumble’s Braeside Project can be found 129km east of Marble Bar in the region of East Pilbara. Covering an area of 673km2, it contains the Camel Hump Prospect and the Barker Well Prospect. In the December quarter of 2020, Rumble tested five targets at the project through RC drilling, all of which returned strong base metal mineralization, but both Camel Hump and Barker Well produced highly significant evidence of copper and lead mineralization.
At Camel Hump, Rumble has discovered wide zones of copper mineralization, discovered in six shallow RC drill holes, notably on a large Cu-bearing structure. At present, the assays are still pending. At Barker Well, three Pb breccia pipes have been discovered. The first assays for 19 RC shallow drill holes include 6m at 7.58% Pb, 7.7g/t Ag from 25m; 3m at 6.07% Pb, 6.4g/t Ag from 15m; and 3m at 14.23% Pb, 1% Zn, 9.3g/t Ag from 30m. The company is currently awaiting assay results for a further 33 RC drill holes from the prospect.
Munarra Gully Au-Cu-Ag-Zn Project
The fourth drilling programme to be completed is the Munarra Gully Project, situated 50km north-north-east of the town of Cue in the Murchison Goldfields. The main target is the Amaryllis Prospect, a large-scale gold-copper-silver system, under shallow cover of between 10m and 50m. During the December quarter of 2020, Rumble drilled 18 holes for aggregate for 3,088m. It is hoped assay results will be returned soon.
Further drilling ahead
Rumble has several other drilling programmes planned for the March quarter of 2021. The most substantial of these are the Fraser Range Ni-Cu-Au JV projects, a series of highly prospective tenures in the Albany Fraser Range region. These comprise the Thunderdome Project, which is 70% owned by IGO Limited (ASX: IGO) and 30% owned by Rumble, the Thunderbolt Project, again 70% owned by IGO and 30% by Rumble, and the Thunderclap Project, which is wholly owned by Rumble.
Two other projects on the horizon for exploratory drilling are the Earaheedy Zn-Pb-Ag Project in Wiluna, and the Warroo Cu-Zn-Pb-Ag-Au-U-Pt Project in East Pilbara. Rumble, it seems, will be keeping very busy for some time to come.
Financially sound for the future
In retrospect, 2020 was a defining year for Rumble. The company achieved a huge amount across the four completed drilling programmes and is in a strong financial position as it prepares to embark on three further drilling programmes in the March quarter of 2021.
In the report, the company states that, as at 31 December 2020, it held A$4.2M in cash and a further A$285,000 in listed investments. This indicates that Rumble is sitting pretty financially and, with the company’s inevitable pipeline of news flow, has a serious opportunity to have its stock rerated in the near future.
