Founders Metals up 31% on Suriname gold drilling news
Founders Metals Inc. [FDR-TSXV] shares rallied sharply Thursday after the company announced results from a maiden drill program at its Antino Gold Project in Suriname.
The company said it has now drilled 3,500 metres of a 10,000-metre drill program that continues to deliver high-grade gold intercepts as it broadens and extends gold mineralization in the project’sUpper Antino area. Drilling highlights include hole 23FRO14, which returned 15.50 metres of 30.72 g/t gold, including 5.80 metres of 54.61 g/t.
The shares advanced on the news, rising 30.95% or 13 cents to 55 cents on volume of 341,775. The shares are currently trading in a 52-week range of 50 cents and 20 cents.
Founders Metals is focused on acquiring and advancing gold projects in the South American Guiana Shield. Its flagship property is the 20,000-hectare Antino project, where previous work has included over 30,000 metres of historical drilling, 35,000 gold-in-soil auger samples, and property wide aeromagnetic survey data, plus a 2022 LiDar survey.
Antino is the most advanced exploration project in Suriname. It is located in an area where historical surface/alluvial gold mining has produced over 500,000 ounces of gold.
“The consistently strong assay results highlight the extent and continuity of mineable widths of high-grade gold on the property,’’ said Founders CEO Colin Padget. “We are especially pleased to see consistently broader gold-bearing intervals than many of those from historical drilling, mostly due to higher core recovery in the mineralized zones,” he said.
“On the ground, our exploration team is also now following up on recently announced targets from IP data with trenching, channel sampling, and targeted auger/soil sampling underway.’’
Padget went on to say that the company plans to release further details of preliminary results from this work soon along with results from the now complete ground magnetics survey over upper Antonio.
Gold mineralization at upper Antonio occurs in multiple sub-vertical structures within a larger northwest trending shear zone that transects much of the Antonio property. Mineralized zones commonly consist of pyrrhotite/pyrite-bearing quartz or quartz carbonate veining surrounded by a strongly foliated, gold-bearing mix of host rock, quartz and up to 35% sulphides.
The ongoing drill program will test several of these targets where the company sees potential to add substantial new volumes of gold mineralization to the area’s established high-grade gold zones.
When the company launched the current program in July, 2023, it said drilling would focus on expanding the known gold mineralization in the high-grade Froyo Zone in the Upper Antino Area. The 10,000-metre program is expected to include expansion drilling along strike an depth of the historical resource areas at Froyo North and South, Ginger, Donut and Eclaire.