30 Sep Half-year Report

Xtract Resources Plc (AIM: XTR), the gold producer, exploration and development company with projects in Australia, Mozambique and Zambia, announces its unaudited interim results for the six months ended 30 June 2022 (“Period”).

Highlights

Financial

·      Revenue from gold sales of £0.97m (H1 2021: £0.16m)

·      Net loss of £0.03m (H1 2021: £2.20m)

·      Administration & operating expenses £1.33m (H1 2021: £2.19m (including a share-based payment charge of £1.47m))

·      Cash of £1.24m (FY 2021: £8.08m)

·      Net assets of £21.25m (FY 2021: £20.66m)

·      Total alluvial and hard rock mining contractor gold production of 121.8kg (equivalent to 3,916 ounces) (H1 2021: 22.1kg (equivalent to 711 ounces))

·      Total of 23.9kg (equivalent to 769 ounces) attributable to the Company’s Mozambican operating subsidiary, Explorator (H1 2021: 6.2kg (equivalent to 199 ounces))

Operational

·      The completed Phase Two drilling programme at the Bushranger porphyry copper-gold project succeeded in adding significant extensions to the Racecourse prospect.

·      Testing of a geophysical anomaly led to the discovery of a totally new porphyry intrusion at Ascot prospect, approximately 1.5km to the south of the Racecourse Mineral Resource.

·      The Ascot discovery hole BRDD-21-035 returned substantial intervals of copper and gold mineralisation over 164m grading 0.35% CuEq from 552m, including 64m at 0.58% CuEq from 552m.  Follow up drilling further defined and extended the Ascot discovery.

·      The Company will now utilise all the Phase Two drilling data to update the Racecourse prospect mineral resource and define a maiden mineral resource for the Ascot prospect. The open pit mining study for the Racecourse prospect will also be updated

·      At the Manica gold project in Mozambique all construction and installation work at the Fair Bride mine was completed and the processing plant has entered into commissioning.

·      Clearing and pre stripping were carried out and ore has been stockpiled and hauled to the plant site, with the introduction of low-grade ore to commission all parts of the processing circuit.

Operational Overview

During the period the Company continued with its ongoing assessment of the Bushranger copper-gold project located within the Lachlan Fold Belt district of New South Wales, the foremost porphyry copper-gold belt in Australia. 

A Phase Two drilling programme was commenced on the Bushranger Project in July 2021, with the initial goal of extending, and better defining, the Racecourse Mineral Resource, which is currently defined as 71Mt @ 0.44% Cu and 0.064g/t Au, at a 0.3% Cu cut-off.   The Phase Two drilling programme was expanded in scope throughout the reporting period to include the testing of Induced Polarisation (IP) MIMDAS ground geophysical anomalies, outside of the current limits of the Racecourse Mineral Resource.  Testing of a MIMDAS geophysical anomaly led to the discovery of the Ascot prospect, approximately 1.5km to the south of the Racecourse Mineral Resource, with drill hole BRDD-21-035 returning substantial intervals of copper and gold mineralisation, with a best intercept of 164m at 0.35% CuEq from 552m, which includes 64m at 0.58% CuEq from 552m.  Follow up drilling during the Phase Two drilling programme further defined and extended the Ascot discovery.

Immediately following the reporting period, the Bushranger Project Phase two drilling programme was concluded.  A total of 49 diamond drill holes were completed at the Racecourse and Ascot Prospects for 33,354.80m of drilling, during the period 15 July 2021 until 9 July 2022.  The Phase Two drilling programme was highly successful with significant extensions to the Racecourse prospect porphyry copper-gold mineralisation confirmed and the discovery of a totally new porphyry copper-gold intrusion at the Ascot Prospect.

The Company will now utilise all the Phase Two drilling data to update the Racecourse prospect mineral resource and define a maiden mineral resource for the Ascot prospect.  The open pit mining study for the Racecourse prospect, which was completed in April 2021, will also be updated using the new Racecourse mineral resource when it is completed.

The results from the Company’s alluvial and hard rock operations were satisfactory, despite a challenging few months of difficult operating conditions with an aggressive rain and cyclone season.

All construction and installation work relating to the Fair Bride hard rock project in Mozambique was completed. At the end June 2022, production at Fair Bride started with the introduction of low-grade ore to commission all parts of the processing circuit.

Summary of Company Projects

Australia

Bushranger Project

During the reporting period the Phase Two drilling programme on the Bushranger Project in central New South Wales continued at a rapid pace. The objectives of the Phase 2 drilling programme at Racecourse and Ascot Prospects were as follows:

1.     Extend to the northwest and southeast the currently defined Racecourse prospect Inferred Mineral Resource of 71Mt @ 0.44% Cu and 0.064g/t Au, at a 0.3% Cu cut-off

2.     Test a series of IP resistivity low anomalies to determine if the resistivity lows relate to areas of increased intensity of copper mineralisation at the top of the porphyry system in the “crown” position

3.     Test the continuity of copper mineralisation on the eastern side of the Central Porphyry Intrusion, with the objective of defining a new Inferred Mineral Resource to complement the existing Racecourse Inferred Mineral Resource which occurs predominantly on the western side of the Central Porphyry Intrusion

4.     Determine the extent and grade of the newly discovered copper mineralisation at the Ascot Prospect

The Phase Two drilling programme at the Racecourse Prospect commenced on 15 July 2021 and was concluded, following the conclusion of the reporting period, on 9 July 2022.  The overall Phase Two drilling programme comprised 49 diamond drill holes (BRDD-21-007 to BRDD-22-055), completed at the Racecourse and Ascot Prospect for 33,354.80m of drilling. 

Phase Two drilling into the Racecourse prosect continued to intersect very broad intervals of moderate strength copper-gold mineralisation grading in the range 0.15 – 0.61% CuEq.  On 9 December 2021, the company announced the discovery of a new porphyry system approximately 1.5km to the south-east of the Racecourse Inferred Mineral Resource.  Drill holes BRDD-21-033 and BRDD-21-035 intersected porphyry style alteration and trace to moderate strength copper mineralisation. The new prospect was called “Ascot” and follow up drilling was completed with the objective of defining the extents of the Ascot discovery.  Drill hole BRDD-21-035 returned substantial intervals of copper and gold mineralisation with a best intercept of 164m at 0.35% CuEq from 552m, including 64m at 0.58% CuEq from 552m. The initial assay results from the Ascot prospect indicated the potential for significant gold enhancement associated with the copper mineralisation and this result encouraged follow up drilling at Ascot. Holes BRDD-21-025, BRDD-21-031, BRDD-21-033, BRDD-21-038, BRDD-22-039 and BRDD-22-044 were drilled as follow up holes into the Ascot prospect.  The best result of the follow up drilling at Ascot was returned in drill hole BRDD-21-038 which returned 104m @ 0.24% CuEq from 79m and drill hole BRDD-22-039 which returned 32m @ 0.92g/t Au from 510m.  The drill results from the Ascot prospect indicate that this porphyry system does contain more gold zones than the Racecourse deposit for the north.  The results at Ascot display similar characteristics to the discovery of the deeper, gold-rich Ridgeway deposit, which is a part of the Cadia-Ridgeway group of porphyry deposits discovered by Newcrest Mining.  Ridgeway is a near vertical intrusive complex with an indicated resource of 110Mt at 0.57 g/t Au and 0.3% Cu and is currently under development by Newcrest as an underground mining operation.

Drilling and assay data from the Ascot prospect will be used to complete a maiden mineral resource estimation for the Ascot prospect, which will be finalised prior to the end of 2022.

To assist in the determination as to whether the Ascot and Racecourse prospects, form one continuous mineralised porphyry copper system, an extension MIMDAS geophysical survey was completed from south of the Ascot Prospect through to the existing MIMDAS survey (from May 2021) covering the Racecourse prospect.  The results of this MIMDAS survey guided the follow up drilling completed at the Ascot prospect and drilling between the Racecourse and Ascot prospects.  Drilling between the two prospects continued to intersect copper-gold mineralisation and it appears the Racecourse and Ascot prospects are centres of more intense copper-gold mineralisation within one larger system consisting of multiple porphyry intrusions, as commonly occurs within the Lachlan Fold Belt.

Drilling at the Racecourse prospect was successful in extending the known copper-gold mineralisation to the north-west, the south-east and at depth.  During the reporting period seven drill holes (BRDD-22-041, BRDD-22-042, BRDD-22-043, BRDD-22-047, BRDD-22-048, BRDD-22-053, BRDD-22-054) for 4,968.9m, were completed at the Racecourse prospect.  Assay data was also received for drill holes completed at the Racecourse prospect during the previous reporting period.  The drilling and assay data gave better definition of the “crown position”, at the top of the Racecourse porphyry intrusion, which appears to contain the highest grades of copper and gold at Racecourse.  Drill Hole BRDD-21-018 returned an intersection of 170m of 0.22% CuEq from 520m depth, which includes a higher-grade interval of 12m at 0.41% CuEq from 648m downhole in the “crown position”.  The results of drill hole BRDD-21-019 include a wide 202m interval of copper mineralisation grading at 0.27% CuEq from 276m depth, which includes a higher-grade intercept of 18m at 0.67% CuEq from 312m depth, also in the “crown position” atop the Racecourse porphyry intrusion.  Hole BRDD-21-021 repeated the success of hole BRD-21-008, with an overall intercept of 280m at 0.36% CuEq from 205m, including a higher-grade interval of 92m at 0.53% CuEq from 205m downhole depth.

The Phase Two drilling at the Racecourse prospect was successful in extending the known copper-gold mineralisation to the north-west, the south-east and at significant depth.  Furthermore, the Phase Two drilling data has substantially better defined the higher grade “crown position” at Racecourse and provided a better understanding of the distribution of gold within the Racecourse deposit.  The company will now utilise all the Phase Two drilling data to update the Racecourse prospect mineral resource and subsequently will update the open pit mining study for the Racecourse prospect which was previously completed in April 2021.  The updated mining study is planned for completion before the end of 2022.

Two drill holes, for 804.4m, were completed at the Footrot Prospect, approximately 5 kilometres to the south of the Racecourse, to test a combined soil geochemical and MIMDAS anomaly.  The results from these two holes will be available during the next reporting period.

Mozambique

Mozambique is recognised as a stable mining jurisdiction within a favourable political and legal regime. The Manica Gold Project is situated in the Odzi-Mutare-Manica Greenstone belt, with an estimated 2 million ounces of gold previously mined in the area.

The Fair Bride Project is an open pit and underground project with a combined SAMREC compliant resource of 1.262 million ounces (including 782k ounces Measured and Indicated). In 2019, the Company was given the opportunity to move the Fair Bride Project forward, from development stage to production through a collaboration agreement with Mutapa Mining and Processing LDA, thereby mitigating any execution risk to Xtract.

During the reporting period, all construction and installation work was at Fair Bride was completed, including 6 CIL tanks, thickener, elution circuit, gold room, reagent storage and laboratory. Rectification works were completed on the original crushing and milling circuits and the plant has entered into commissioning.

 All clearing and pre stripping were completed and ore has been stockpiled and hauled to the plant site, along the completed new haulage road. At the end of June 2022, Fair Bride production started with the introduction of low-grade ore to commission all parts of the processing circuit.

Zambia

Eureka Project

Copper mineralisation at Eureka occurs within sedimentary rocks along a north-west oriented structural trend. A shallow historic open pit mine was developed by a local operator. Previously reported drilling by Xtract confirmed continuity of the shallow mineralised zone over about 300m of strike, with pockets of exceptionally high copper grades in a partially oxidised supergene zone. A second, possible stratabound mineral style may also represent a target of interest.

No further exploration was undertaken at Eureka during the period pending consideration of options for possible future development.

Financial

During the Period, administration expenses for the Group amounted to £1.33m (H1 2021 – £2.19m). Included within administration expenses is an amount of £Nil (H1 2021- £1.47m) in relation to a share-based payment charge in relation to the grant of 28.4 million options to directors and employees in February 2021. Non-operating income for the period amounted to £0.49m (H1 2021- Nil) and comprised primarily of fees invoiced within the group to third parties.

Enquiries:

The information contained within this announcement is deemed by the Company to constitute inside information as stipulated under the Market Abuse Regulations (EU) No. 596/2014 as it forms part of UK Domestic Law by virtue of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 (“UK MAR”). The person who arranged for the release of this announcement on behalf of the Company was Joel Silberstein, Director.

Further details are available from the Company’s website which details the company’s project portfolio as well as a copy of this announcement: www.xtractresources.com