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Resource World Magazine Volume 18 Issue 2

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F E B R U A R Y / M A R C H 2 0 2 0 www.resourceworld.com 47 Australian Update by Greg Barns A ustralia's Pilbara region in the northwest of Western Australia has long been known as an iron ore rich mineral province. But these, days gold is as likely to be mentioned when Pilbara is brought up. Vancouver based Novo Resources Corp. [NVO-TSXV; NSRPF-OTCQX] is one of the companies looking to explore and develop gold proj- ects in the Pilbara. The company's 13,000 km 2 of ground includes the advanced Beatons Creek Project and the Egina Project. Focusing on innovative mechanical sort testing tech- nology is producing some exciting results from at the Egina Project and has potential to reduce costs at the near term production target of Beaton Creek. Novo is experimenting with a number of waterless, chemical-free processing tech- niques to handle the unique nuggetty gold in Pilbara conglomerates and lag gravels, says Dr. Quinton Hennigh, Chairman and President of Novo. Using two companies – Steinert Global and TOMRA – Novo says it can reliably identify gold particles in orders of magnitude smaller than possible only a year ago. The Egina Project is a prime focus for the application of these new sorting technologies. The Egina Project lies approximately 120 km east of the Beatons Creek Project. Most gold found at Egina in gravel is coarse and water-worn with detected nuggets ranging in size from approximately 0.5- 104 grams. In January 2019, Novo said a total of 107.88 grams of raw gold had been recovered from 95 cubic metres of gravel. "Gold was found to be dominantly coarse suggesting simple processing techniques can likely be employed during potential future large-scale gold recovery at Egina. Novo thinks lag gravels mantling the vast erosional terrace at Egina could host a sig- nificant gold deposit, the shallow nature of which makes it a particularly attractive target," the company announced. Work during 2019 proved positive for Novo Resources. In an announcement on 15 November last year the company said that its "exploration activities have confirmed the presence of extensive areas of gold-bear- ing gravels at the South Egina and Paradise targets. South Egina is approximately 2 km south and Paradise is approximately 14 km north-northeast of the site of Novo's recent trenching and bulk sampling activities on the Egina mining lease. Given these are the very first new target areas to be explored outside of the main area of focus to date, Novo is very encour- aged by early results. "Using prospect level trenching, metal detecting and 'indicative' mini-bulk sampling to assess prospectivity of gravels in new target areas" the company hopes to "define at least five new highly prospective areas of gold-bearing gravels that can be subjected to similar systematic trenching and bulk sampling as that con- ducted at the Egina mining lease over the past few months. Novo hopes to identify multiple new areas that can potentially be developed into larger bulk sampling sites," the company said. Novo has excellent relations with the Kariyarra Aboriginal Corporation which has been carrying out heritage studies and surveys in the area. The company also recently announced that it had used mechanical sorting at Steinert Global's Perth facility of an "approximate 5-tonne bulk sample of Egina gravels". This sam- ple was screened into three size fractions, 18-50 mm, 6-18 mm and less than 6 mm, and repeated tests "demonstrated effec- tively 100% recovery of all gold particles over one mm in size into concentrates of well less than 1% of the total mass," which the company called "a remarkable result." Novo Resources has been able to inter- est Japanese mineral house Sumitomo Corporation with a joint venture to develop the project. Sumitomo is entitled to earn, through farm-in arrangements, up to a 40% interest in the Egina Project by spend- ing up to US $30 million over three years, with a required minimum of US $5 million for each development phase. Dr. Hennigh says that with "Sumitomo's financial back- ing, [Novo's] aim is to quickly advance Egina through exploration and test-extrac- tion phases with the ultimate goal, should results prove favourable, of setting the proj- ect on a path to production." Novo Resources is also continuing to develop its Beatons Creek Project which currently has an Indicated Resource of 457,000 oz gold and an Inferred Resource of 446,000 oz gold at around 2 g/t by having Steinert and TOMRA test a 5-tonne sample of gold-bearing conglomerate because it says advancements in technology has allowed the company to conceptualize "a potentially viable alternative dry process- ing pathway for Beatons Creek." This has the potential to significantly reduce capital and operating costs compared to conven- tional wet processing schemes. n Novo Resources testing innovative processing in Pilbara Conglomerate gold nuggets from the Novo Resources gold project in the Pilbara region of Western Australia. The nugget on the left is from Comet Well and the nugget on the right is from the Egina Project. Source: Novo Resources Corp.

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