Aurion Resources (Toronto Stock Exchange symbol: AU; US over-the-counter market symbol: AIRRF) has been focused on gold exploration in Finland since 2014. The company owns about 90, 000 hectares of land in the Middle Lapland greenstone belt, which includes Agnico Eagle Mines's Kittila gold deposit and Boliden's Kevista nickel-copper-cobalt deposit, Rupert Resources's Ikkari gold mine, and Anglo American's Sakatti nickel-copper-platinum group metal (PGM) deposit.
Aurion's flagship projects are the wholly owned Risti and Launi projects, which are located on the 125km Sirkka shear zone about 900km north of Helsinki. The company has discovered several gold deposits in Risti and recently announced the discovery of a new gold-bearing area in Launi East.
The company has successfully drilled near-surface gold mineralization in the Aamurusko target area of Risti. Highlights of drilling in the Aamurusko main area include: 789.06 grams of gold per ton at 2.9m (including 3510 grams per ton at 0.7m), 42.28g at 4m, 24.5g at 4.8m, and 22.63g at 3.5m. The gold grade of 3.1m is 4.54g gold, 7.8m is 1.69g gold, 3.5m is 1.55g gold, and 3.4m is 1.51g gold in Gap area. The grade of gold in the northwest of Aamurusko is 9.42g gold in 28.22m, 23.41g gold in 11.1m and 6.84g gold in 19m.
All three areas of Risiti: the main area of Aamurusko, the area of Gap and the northwest of Aamurusko are open in depth. Moreover, mineralization is open in both directions along the trend.
The first exploration in the Launidong bloc was carried out in 2019, which is adjacent to the southern part of the Risti project. It does not drill as much as Risti does, but highlights include 63.9g of gold above 0.37m per tonne and 3.06g of gold over 5.3m per tonne. The Launi West block, which is about 10 kilometers from the Launi East block, has not yet been tested.
Aurion said that the regional potential of Risti and Launi is great because there are dozens of kilometers of potential structural trends to be explored. Gold ore anomalies have been encountered in the geological environment related to volcanic rocks, sedimentary rocks and intrusive rocks.
Aurion also established a joint venture with B2Gold in Finland and acquired a 75 per cent interest in the project. The project covers an area of nearly 290 square kilometers and includes Kutuvuoma and Ahvenjarvi prospects. B2Gold spent $10 million in two years and now owns 70 per cent of the joint venture.
The joint venture recently made a new discovery in Kutuvuoma East called Kutuvuoma-Ikkari Discovery. The mine is in the same geological sequence as Rupert Resources's 3.95 million-ounce Ikkari discovery. Ikkari was found to be 1.5km to the east. The drilling achieved a grade of 1.84g of gold per ton of 21.2m, including 2.61g of gold of 21.2m and 2.42g of 10.3m of IKK21003 hole. IKK21002 Cave found that the gold grade of 30.6m is 1.42g, including 6.5m and 2.94g of gold.
Earlier this month, Aurion granted Kinross Gold the option to build the Silaskaira project, about 30 kilometers northwest of Agnico Eagle's Kitilla mine. Kinross can get a 70 per cent interest by paying C $100000 to Aurion and spending C $5 million on the project over the next five years.
Aurion Resources has a market capitalization of $89.3 million.
