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In a recent update, Alice Queen (ASX:AQX) founder and Managing Director Andy Buxton shared that exploration continues at the company's Viani gold project in Fiji.

“Trenching results emulate the drilling results almost perfectly, with peaks of 20 grams per tonne gold. (The) gold-to-silver ratio is 1:1. That’s consistent,” he told the Investing News Network, adding that Alice Queen has only tested a small portion of what it knows could become a large system.

Viani is located on Vanua Levu, Fiji’s second largest island. Previous exploration at the Dakuniba prospect indicates potential to host a high-grade, vein-style epithermal gold system, outlining a 3 kilometre long gold-silver-arsenic-antimony-lead-zinc-barium anomaly.

“What we’ve done here shows that low-cost trenching is valuable, and we plan to commence more (trenching). In the near term, we hope this gives us around 10 to 14 high-priority drill targets," said Buxton.

Buxton added that there are currently only two operating gold mines in Fiji, with one being the cornerstone Vatukoula mine, a 75 year old mine that has produced 7 million ounces of gold and currently has 3 million ounces in reserves. The second is the Tuvatu mine by Lion One Metals (TSXV:LIO,OTCQX:LOMLF), which recently entered the production ramp-up phase.

“Fiji has a long history of gold mining. While there are more mines in Australia, the nature of things in Fiji is high-grade underground mines,” he said in response to a question on the difference between working in Fiji versus Australia.

The founder said that coinciding with activities at Viani are developments at Alice Queen's 16.7 million tonne Horn Island gold project in Queensland, where catalysts include an updated scoping study and an updated mineral resource estimate.

Watch the full interview with Alice Queen founder and Managing Director Andy Buxton above.