The playbook — gold · September 9, 2026
High-grade gold hits at Antino's new West Zone
Founders Metals' first step-out drilling on ground added under a year ago returns 27 metres of 20.38 grams per tonne gold.
Founders Metals drilled its first real step-out holes into a brand-new patch of its Antino project in southeast Suriname — ground it added to the property less than a year ago — and one hole lit up. Hole FR251 cut 27.0 metres grading 20.38 grams of gold per tonne (that’s about two-thirds of an ounce of gold in every tonne of rock), including a 10.0-metre core at 43.26 grams per tonne where the drillers could see gold in the rock. The company is calling this the West Zone. Four other step-out holes were also reported.
Here’s why one hole matters. Geologists measure a hit by multiplying width by grade to get “gram-metres.” FR251 works out to roughly 550 gram-metres — an elite number for a single intercept, on par with Antino’s best holes elsewhere. What makes it interesting is where it sits: about 1.2 kilometres from the Froyo zone that made Antino’s name, with the same vein and rock style. That hints the district may host several parallel high-grade systems rather than one lucky vein. The market clearly noticed something. Over three months Founders shares rose 62.7 percent — nearly twice the 31.5 percent gain of the junior gold index (GDXJ), while gold itself moved just 5 percent, so this isn’t a rising-tide story. The company also has deep-pocketed company: mining major Gold Fields has been building a stake, committing to a placement that would take it near 19.9 percent.
Now the honest part. FR251 is currently a single bullseye. Of the five step-out holes reported, two returned no significant gold and two were low-grade, so nobody yet knows whether the high grade connects along strike. The true widths are given only as a blanket estimate of about 80 percent of the drilled length, not modelled hole by hole. And the assays are un-capped — the company says there isn’t enough drilling yet to set capping levels, so those 20.38 and 43.26 gram figures could shrink once representative grades are calculated. Drilling is ongoing beyond these five holes; watch whether the next holes repeat the hit. Also pending: closing the buy-out of Nana Resources’ remaining 30 percent to reach 100 percent ownership of Antino, targeted near-term with an outside date of November 30, 2026.