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Iceni Gold Limited (ASX: ICL) (Iceni or the Company) is pleased to provide an exploration update on further work conducted on the 14 Mile Well Gold Project.
Highlights
- Further fieldwork at the Christmas Gift prospect in the priority Everleigh Well target area has extended the host shear structure, as well as returning additional gold bearing quartz veinlets and high-grade gold rock chip results.
- Additional high-grade rock chip assay results returned from the newly exposed sample trenches include:
- 158.00g/t Au, 93.50g/t Au and 43.20g/t Au
- These results continue on from previously announced ultra high-grade rock chip assay results, including;
- 18,207g/t Au, 18,179g/t Au, 16,776g/t Au, 16,659g/t Au, 14,780g/t Au
- Multiple shallow surface excavations along the trend have now exposed and extended the shear structure over an approximately 50m strike length that is open.
- Diamond Drilling contractors are in the process of being secured and a further announcement will be made soon in relation to mobilisation.
Figure 1 Gold* bearing quartz specimen vein sample collected from the sample trench over the Christmas Gift shear*Visual estimates of mineral abundance should never be considered a proxy or substitute for laboratory analyses where concentrations or grades are the factor of principal economic interest. Visual estimates also potentially provide no information regarding impurities or deleterious physical properties relevant to valuations.
Commenting on the sampling results, Managing Director Wade Johnson said:
“The recent field activities and assay results at our Christmas Gift prospect provide further support to the prospectivity of this new high-grade discovery within our large 14 Mile Well Project. We are excited by the further high-grade rock chip results and shallow surface activities that now demonstrates a strike length of at least 50m to the structure that is open. The geological characteristics of the Christmas Gift structure does provide key information and a target style to explore the greater Everleigh area for additional gold mineralisation and further develop the geological model in this area. A diamond drill rig is in the process of being secured, the drill sites prepared, and we are poised to commence our maiden drill program at Christmas Gift.”
Christmas Gift Prospect
Christmas Gift is located within the priority Everleigh Well Target area (“Everleigh”), that is central to the 14 Mile Well Project. The Everleigh area forms part of the historic Redcastle gold mining centre, renowned for its prolific gold nugget finds, which was discovered in 1894. Everleigh also contains a number of historical prospecting pits, shafts and shallow workings in additional numerous alluvial gold workings distributed over a wide area. The largest historical workings in this Everleigh area are the Castlemaine Gold workings location to the south of the Christmas Gift (see Figure 5). Alluvial gold nuggets continue to be found in the area.
The Christmas Gift Prospect is located at one of the historical workings and where sampling by the Company during 2023 confirmed the presence of the narrow high-grade quartz veinlets with abundant visible gold (ASX release 8 June 2023).
Further exploration work by the Company consisted of extending the original sample pit previously exposed (ASX release 8 June 2024) and excavation of five shallow sample pits (costeans) along strike to expose the Christmas Gift shear beneath the shallow (0.5m) cover. This work has demonstrated the shear now extends to approximately 50m along strike and is open. In addition, the shear structure maintains a consistent 1m true width which trends approximately northwest and dips 55 degrees to the northeast (Figure 4).
The original trench (ASX release 8 May 2024) was also extended to the south, toward and adjacent to the historical shaft. This work further exposed the gold bearing lithological unit (shear) and exposed additional spectacular narrow quartz veinlets containing visible gold (Figure 1 & Table 1) that has provided additional important geological information to the characteristics of the gold bearing structure. The Christmas Gift shear is interpreted to be a sheared interflow sediment -basalt contact bounded by massive basalt.
The combination of the previous and recent work by the Company has now confirmed the Christmas Gift shear has a strike length of at least 50m, is open, maintains a width of approximately 1m and has further enhanced the prospectivity of the target.
Results from multiple rock chip samples (Appendix 1) collected from the sample pits to test the different lithologies, including the quartz veinlets within the main Christmas Gift shear zone and the surrounding massive basalt host, support the high-grade character of the structure. Significant high-grade gold results (Table 1) include 158g/t Au and 93.5g/t Au returned from rock samples (including quartz veining collected from the shear).
Click here for the full ASX Release
This article includes content from Iceni Gold, licensed for the purpose of publishing on Investing News Australia. This article does not constitute financial product advice. It is your responsibility to perform proper due diligence before acting upon any information provided here. Please refer to our full disclaimer here.
ICL:AU
Navigating Uncertainty: How Trump's Tariffs Are Affecting the Gold Market
Read on to learn how tariffs have affected the gold market and price so far.
How have tariffs affected the gold price?
The gold price has been on the rise since the beginning of the year. After briefly touching the US$3,500 per ounce level in May, it has pulled back and was trading just under US$3,400 as of Tuesday (August 26).
Gold price, January 1 to August 26, 2025.
Chart via TradingEconomics.
Although some of its increase is attributable to the points mentioned above, a significant portion is owed to a lack of information surrounding US President Donald Trump’s tariff policies.
Initially there was no clarity on what or who was being tariffed, or when the levies would ultimately be implemented, and investors started to move into gold for greater stability and portfolio diversification.
Uncertainty about whether gold would be tariffed also had an effect, prompting traders in the US to import physical gold; this created a price differential between New York futures and the London spot price.
Concerns dissipated as the Trump administration began to nail down tariffs, but were reignited once again when US Customs and Border Patrol posted a ruling on July 31 indicating that the 39 percent tariffs against imports from Switzerland would include 1 kilogram and 100 ounce gold bars.
The news caused spot gold to spike more than 3 percent, from US$3,290 to US$3,398, and sent December futures to an all-time high of US$3,549. Meanwhile, traders halted imports of Swiss bars.
After several days of turmoil, Trump said the ruling was incorrect, and the bars would not be included in the tariff measures being applied to other Swiss imports; the gold price then retreated.
How would gold tariffs have impacted the market?
Gold functions as both a commodity and an essential part of the world’s financial system.
One kilogram and 100 ounce gold bars are used to back futures trading, and regular shipments of the metal are needed to settle contracts once they come due. A 39 percent tariff on gold from Switzerland would have been particularly disruptive, as Swiss refineries account for approximately 70 percent of the world’s gold.
According to the UN Comtrade database, in 2024, Switzerland exported more than 1,400 metric tons of unwrought gold worth more than US$106 billion, representing nearly 30 percent of the country’s total exports. Tariffs would have forced US buyers to pay a significant premium for the precious metal versus buyers in London or Shanghai.
Because gold is often used as a store of value in times of uncertainty, any kind of disruption could have had broader implications for investors looking to add stability to their portfolios.
In an email to the Investing News Network (INN), Lauren Saidel-Baker, CFA, an economist with ITR Economics, explained that gold stands out as a unique investment mechanism:
“There are psychological nuances to gold, which is commonly viewed as a safe store of value during uncertain times and an inflation hedge. Overall, the tariff would have added another facet to the already elevated policy uncertainty."
If the tariffs had remained in place, the US gold price would have had to rise to around US$4,700 per ounce to cover levies, while international prices would have remained closer to the US$3,500 mark.
“Tariffs have already complicated supply chains across industries, and this gold tariff would have been another example of added cost and complexity — but in this case, one with the potential to more directly impact investment activities,” Saidel-Baker went on to explain, emphasizing that US investors would have felt the pinch.
Could gold tariffs happen in the future?
Given Trump's unpredictability, especially when it comes to tariffs, it's possible that gold levies could enter the conversation again. However, by and large experts agree that the matter is closed.
“I think it’s pretty clear at this point that there’s no intention to put tariffs on physical gold imports, and I think that would be very damaging and destructive if they did,” Stefan Gleason, CEO of Money Metals, told INN.
Keith Weiner, founder and CEO of Monetary Metals, offered another perspective, saying that although the gold tariff threat is over, the tumult could have long-term effects on the market.
"Once you've put the scare into everybody, you can't just say, 'Oh, sorry, just kidding.' You can't really do that. And so now we've done damage, and we'll see what happens to that spread over time. We'll see how users of the futures market adapt. There are other markets in the world that would be competing for," he explained.
"This hedging business, you know, maybe it moves to Singapore, maybe it moves to Dubai, maybe it moves to London, and the US loses not only a little more trust, but also a little bit of volume on what had been the biggest — or what is currently the biggest — futures market," Weiner added to INN.
Market participants will be watching closely for future impacts on the yellow metal.
Don't forget to follow us @INN_Resource for real-time updates!
Securities Disclosure: I, Dean Belder, hold no direct investment interest in any company mentioned in this article.
Editorial Disclosure: The Investing News Network does not guarantee the accuracy or thoroughness of the information reported in the interviews it conducts. The opinions expressed in these interviews do not reflect the opinions of the Investing News Network and do not constitute investment advice. All readers are encouraged to perform their own due diligence.