Nanocap Austin Metals (ASX:AYT) has kicked off a 1,500m RC drill run at its Austin Gold Project (AGP) in WA’s Goldfields hoping to replicate past assays.

Citing historical drill data – an increasingly common trend among ASX juniors, especially in the higher cost mining environment – the company flagged three key assays of interest based on brief intersection widths.

Those are:

• 06m @ 15.8g/t gold from 36m depth
• 02m @ 19.6g/t gold from 31m depth
• 03 m @ 4.8g/t gold from 44m depth

Shares were flat in the second hour of trades on Tuesday as the thinly-traded company failed to garner immediate interest.

(At least one HotCopper user in the relevant announcement thread was glad to see the company is winding up 2024 with drilling activity.)

This December-borne drill run will focus on the on-site Mt. Sandy prospect from where the historical data was pulled and where a “recent project review and target generation work has identified excellent potential.”

Previous geochem analysis also lends itself to the belief this is the best place to target.

“The primary focus of the current RC drilling program is to test beneath the historical intercepts of mineralisation and/or anomalism to determine whether the shallow gold mineralisation extends and potentially improves in thickness and/or grade in the underlying fresh rock,” Austin wrote on Tuesday.

Of course, quite a bit more modern drill data will be needed to know for sure – which could indicate further raising activity, given Austin is currently a penny stock with a $6 million market cap.

The company noted on Tuesday the nearest gold mill is only 17km away.

AYT last traded at 0.5cps.

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