Froyo Zone grows: Founders hits 54 m of 8.45 g/t gold on a second structure

Founders Metals drilled a hole into the Froyo Zone at its Antino project in southeast Suriname and hit 54.0 metres grading 8.45 grams of gold per tonne — rich rock, about a quarter-ounce of gold in every tonne, over a thick run. Inside that run sits an even higher-grade core: 24.0 metres at 17.42 g/t. The hole, FR256, sits roughly 100 metres across strike east of an earlier hit (FR249), between about 275 and 420 metres below surface. When we last covered Founders, the news was ownership and money — the Nana buy-out and a Gold Fields top-up — with no new rock to weigh. This is the drill report that follows.

The reason this matters is geometry, not just grade. FR256’s 54 metres at 8.45 g/t works out to roughly 456 gram-metres, a tier-one combination of width and grade. But it landed on a second parallel structure about 100 metres east of the known FR249 zone, and the same hole, deeper down, returned 11.0 metres at 3.59 g/t that extends the FR249 zone about 75 metres down-dip, to roughly 420 metres vertical. FR252, drilled from the same pad as FR256 — a fan from one collar, not a separate step-out — added 14.0 metres at 4.22 g/t and a shallower 4.0 metres at 10.22 g/t. FR264 chipped in 16.5 metres at 4.21 g/t of near-surface oxide from 30.6 metres down. The system repeats across strike and up-dip. Over three months the stock ran 102 percent to C$8.16 while the junior gold index gained 9.4 percent and gold slipped 1 percent — this re-rating is about the company, not the sector.

Now the honest part. True widths are disclosed as roughly 75 percent of the down-hole interval — a blanket factor, not hole-by-hole modeling — so the 54-metre run implies about 40 metres true width. The headline grades use uncapped assays; the company says there isn’t enough drilling yet to set capping levels, so figures like 24 metres at 17.42 g/t may read high. The new eastern structure rests on two holes plus one same-pad companion, and its strike continuity isn’t drilled off. There’s still no resource estimate, so scale is an inference. On last time’s open promises: the Nana buy-out closed. West Zone step-outs, Antino Northeast follow-up, and a maiden resource remain pending. Watch for more Froyo step-out assays on both structures through 2026 and Lower Antino infill drilling toward that first resource.

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