Aurumin, an ASX-listed gold exploration company, has been granted three additional tenements at its Sandstone gold project in Western Australia (WA).

The three tenements are E57/1294, E57/1302 and E57/1371.

The E57/1294 tenement is located next to the company’s Central Sandstone mining tenements to the north-east.

It has seen first pass regional exploration work so far, including wide spaced reconnaissance drilling as well as surface sampling.

The E57/1302 and E57/1371 tenements consolidate the greenstone trend hosting mineralisations including Bellchambers, Bulchina and Golden Raven. Surface sampling work has already been completed at these two tenements.

E57/1302 has been untested by drilling, and only six drillholes were completed to date.

At E57/1371, 22 first pass rotary air blast (RAB) holes have been completed. Historically, the tenement also includes the Muriel Chapman mine, which operated in the early 1900s and is reported to have a resource of 106 tonnes at 15.1 grams per tonne (g/t) for 51.5oz.

The company stated that the process of compiling and validating data for the project areas is ongoing, including data sourced from open file reports and from the inherited Troy Resources Database as part of the Sandstone Project acquisition.

Furthermore, it soon plans to begin on-ground exploration activities.

Aurumin managing director Brad Valiukas said: “We are pleased to be solidifying our footprint in the Sandstone region with these tenement grants. These are good, prospective additions to our exploration ground, including directly adjacent to Aurumin’s existing mining tenements.

“The company is narrowing its focus to the Sandstone region, following the divestment of Karramindie and with two divestments in progress at Mt Dimer. We remain committed to generating critical mass for future production at Sandstone.”

In July 2023, Aurumin entered into an agreement with Kurnod, a private company, to acquire two of the tenement applications, E57/1294 and E571302.

In November last year it applied for a competitive ballot process for 15 new tenements next to the Central Sandstone project.

The E57/1371 tenement was one of the 15 that it applied for.

Aurumin’s Sandstone project is located 12km from the township of Sandstone and nearly 520km from Perth.

It covers tenure of around 185km² of land including three granted mining licences and has gold mineralisation hosted within the greenstone belt that forms the central spine of the Archaean Yilgarn Block.

It is claimed to have a resource of 18 million tonnes at 1.5g/t for 881koz of gold (Au) across both open pit and underground operations.