Unity Metals has identified multiple new gold-anomalous zones across 1,063 metres of trenching at its Ngot and O’Phlay projects in Cambodia. The work also showed that drilling at Ngot NE was poorly oriented to intersect the interpreted mineralisation, setting up a revised drilling campaign.
- 1,063m of trenching completed across Ngot and O’Phlay
- Ngot Central returned 6m at 3.0 g/t gold and 22m at 0.9 g/t
- Rock-chip samples at Ngot NE reached 7.8 g/t gold
- Ngot NE drilling to be re-oriented toward steeply dipping veins
- 20-hole O’Phlay Phase 2 drilling remains scheduled for October
Trenching expands the gold footprint
Unity Metals Limited (ASX:UM1) has uncovered several new zones of gold mineralisation outside its existing drilling coverage after completing 1,063 metres of trenching across the Ngot and O’Phlay gold projects in Cambodia.
The strongest results came from Ngot Central, where trench 26TRNC001 returned 6 metres at 3.0 g/t gold from 52 metres, including 4 metres at 4.4 g/t, and 22 metres at 0.9 g/t from 142 metres, including 2 metres at 7.7 g/t. A separate 18-metre zone grading 0.5 g/t from 4 metres was identified east of existing drilling and will require follow-up drilling.
At Srolao, a 105-metre trench produced 6 metres at 1.2 g/t gold from 41 metres, including 1 metre at 6.1 g/t. Unity said the result closely matched an earlier drill intersection and confirmed the interpreted north-northeast orientation of the mineralised zone.
Ngot NE exposes a drilling problem
The most consequential result may not be a headline assay. At Ngot NE, mineralised quartz veins exposed in a 21-metre trench ran parallel to the trench itself, making standard channel sampling inappropriate. Grab rock-chip samples from the exposed veins returned up to 7.8 g/t gold, but those are point samples rather than representative width-based intersections.
More importantly, the trenching and observations near previous drilling indicate that Unity’s initial holes were drilled sub-parallel to the mineralisation. The company now interprets the prospect as a major north-northeast structural corridor with subordinate, steeply dipping to sub-vertical east-west gold-bearing veins. The corridor extends toward the Okvau gold mine, 2.2 kilometres to the north, and is associated with a 700-metre gold and arsenic soil anomaly.
Unity’s Exploration Manager Shane Hibbird said the field work suggested the Ngot and O’Phlay systems were more stockwork-like than previously expected. His comparison with historical trenching pursued at Okvau is company commentary, not evidence that either Unity project has yet demonstrated a comparable deposit.
O’Phlay results leave the main target untouched
At O’Phlay’s Camp Prospect, five trenches tested conductivity highs identified by gradient-array induced polarisation data. Trench 26TRCM002 returned 20 metres at 0.2 g/t gold from 46 metres, including 1 metre at 2.6 g/t, while another trench exposed a flat-lying arsenopyrite-bearing quartz vein that returned 1.9 g/t from a grab sample.
Those results add targets for drilling, but the campaign did not test the demagnetised zones now considered important to the Camp mineralisation model. The trenches were designed before Unity received the relevant magnetic data, leaving a key qualification around what the programme has actually tested. A 20-hole Phase 2 diamond-drilling programme at O’Phlay remains scheduled to begin in October.
Assays and re-oriented drilling are next
Unity expects assays from diamond holes 26DDCM006 and 26DDCM007 at O’Phlay in late September, followed by the planned resumption of diamond drilling in early October. Follow-up work is also required at Ngot Central, Srolao and Ngot NE, while the 89-metre historical trench uncovered at Rohav Mountain has been cleared but not yet sampled.
The results are encouraging as an exploration update, particularly where trench intervals line up with known drilling. They do not establish a mineral resource: the reported intersections are observed lengths, true widths are unknown, and the rock-chip assays provide isolated indications rather than continuous grades. The October drilling should therefore do more than add assays; it will test whether the revised structural interpretation can convert surface anomalies into coherent drill-defined zones.
Bottom Line?
The next test is structural rather than promotional: October drilling must show whether the newly identified zones continue at useful widths and whether Ngot NE’s re-oriented holes can intersect the veins that earlier drilling largely missed.
Questions in the middle?
- Will re-oriented drilling at Ngot NE confirm continuity along the 700-metre gold and arsenic soil anomaly?
- How much of the O’Phlay mineralisation lies within the demagnetised zones that the completed trenches did not test?
- Will the late-September diamond-hole assays establish stronger continuity beyond the surface trench results?