Odyssey reveals more room around Tuckanarra’s 1.8km gold system
Odyssey Gold’s latest drilling has added high-grade hits outside current resource boundaries and strengthened the case for a connected Cable-Bollard-Highway mineralised system at Tuckanarra. Preliminary fresh-rock testwork also returned recoveries of up to 99%, although the results remain exploration-stage and an updated resource is still to come.
- 60 RC holes covering 5,296m completed at Tuckanarra
- 4m at 22.9g/t gold north of Cable outside the current resource
- Cable West hangingwall lode now supported over up to 1,100m of strike
- 2m at 29.7g/t gold recorded between Cable and Bollard
- Preliminary fresh-rock recoveries reached 99% for quartz-vein samples
Drilling pushes beyond current Tuckanarra pits
Odyssey Gold Limited (ASX:ODY) has used the final 60 holes from its 20,000-metre infill program to widen the exploration story at Tuckanarra. The 5,296 metres of RC drilling has identified mineralisation beyond the current resource and Stage 1 Scoping Study pit areas, supporting the company’s interpretation of a multi-lode system stretching about 1.8 kilometres from Cable through Bollard to Highway.
The strongest new result came north of Cable, where hole CBRC0477 returned 4 metres at 22.9g/t gold from 45 metres, alongside 8 metres at 1.5g/t from 1 metre. Odyssey describes the lode as a new exploration target outside the current Mineral Resource, but says surrounding drilling is not yet sufficient to establish continuity. Follow-up work is planned along strike and down-plunge.
Cable West lode gains strike and depth support
Cable West is emerging as the most substantial near-mine growth target in the release. The hangingwall structure has been defined by drilling over as much as 1,100 metres of strike and 100 metres vertically from surface, with the latest holes adding 5 metres at 8.6g/t from 96 metres in CBRC0494 and 13 metres at 2.6g/t from 61 metres in CBRC0493, including 2 metres at 8.2g/t.
The structure is not confined to shallow mineralisation: an earlier diamond hole intersected 6.4 metres at 3.4g/t from about 206 metres downhole. That deeper result remains sparsely tested, while the broader Cable West-Bollard West corridor contains multiple prospective lode positions across roughly 1,100 metres immediately beside the planned development area.
High-grade hits fill the Cable-Bollard gap
Between the Cable and Bollard resource areas, drilling continues to outline mineralisation across a roughly 400-metre gap beyond the current Stage 1 pit. CBRC0455 returned 2 metres at 29.7g/t from 65 metres, including 1 metre at 55.4g/t, while other results included 9 metres at 2.1g/t and 8 metres at 1.3g/t in separate holes.
At Bollard, three holes drilled beneath a historical pit returned multiple mineralised zones, including 15 metres at 2.2g/t from 48 metres in CBRC0460. Odyssey says the new drilling provides broader coverage than historical drilling and supports the interpreted continuation between Bollard and Highway. Whether that continuity ultimately changes pit designs will depend on further drilling, modelling and economic evaluation.
Preliminary testwork points to strong fresh-rock recovery
Metallurgical work on three 44-kilogram fresh-rock composites produced recoveries of 99.0% for quartz-vein material, 97.1% for mixed vein and sulphide material, and 86.6% for the high-sulphide composite after 48 hours at a 106-micron grind. Cyanide consumption was reported at 0.20 kilograms per tonne or less, while lime consumption was 0.39 kilograms per tonne.
The result is encouraging but narrow in scope. The testwork covered only three composite samples, the high-sulphide material leached more slowly, and the filing records variability between fire-assayed and calculated head grades, which Odyssey attributes most likely to coarse gold. Further geometallurgical work is planned for the sulphide subset, which represents less than 14% of the resource within conceptual optimisations.
Updated resource will test the exploration case
Odyssey’s current Tuckanarra Mineral Resource stands at 6.3 million tonnes at 2.2g/t gold for 451,000 ounces. The latest drilling will feed an updated Mineral Resource Estimate and mining studies, with a further 12 diamond holes totalling 2,040 metres still awaiting assays. The company also intends to remobilise an RC rig to test the Cable West-Bollard West corridor and other extensions during the remainder of 2026.
The central question is not whether the project contains more mineralisation; this release provides several new indications that it does. It is whether the additional structures can be converted into sufficient, continuous and economically mineable tonnes to alter the resource and pit plan. The upcoming resource update will be the first hard test of that proposition.
Bottom Line?
The exploration envelope is expanding faster than the current pit outlines, but the investment case still turns on continuity, resource conversion and whether the new material improves future mine economics.
Questions in the middle?
- How much of the mineralisation outside the current pits will convert into Indicated or Inferred resource tonnes?
- Will the Cable-Bollard gap support a merged or deeper pit configuration in future economic studies?
- Can further metallurgical and geometallurgical work confirm the preliminary recovery profile across a larger fresh-rock sample set?
