Anglo Australian Resources has tabled an impressive maiden resource for its flagship Mandilla gold project in WA, with the company defining more than 500,000 ounces of gold. The milestone is the culmination of nearly 18 months of solid exploration, with the company having now outlined gold mineralisation over more than 2.5 kilometres of strike and down to 300 metres below surface.
The company’s developing Mandilla gold project is only 70km south of Kalgoorlie and sits within easy trucking distance of a number of gold milling facilities, all of them hungry for ore.
Its enviable address and now resource position give Anglo Australian a range of development options. However, the cost-effective resource build and evident discovery potential at Mandilla have management champing at the bit and eyeing a potential standalone operation.
The central deposit’s gold is embedded within the sheared margin of the Mandilla granitoid - a geological environment reminiscent of several multi-million-ounce deposits across the WA’s Eastern Goldfields.
Anglo Australian Managing Director, Marc Ducler said: “In a relatively short space of time, we have been able to declare a very robust maiden mineral resource of just over half a million ounces right on the doorstep of Kalgoorlie – one of the world’s greatest mining jurisdictions.”
“We expect that the maiden MRE will provide a solid cornerstone to our ambition to build a substantial long-life gold business based around two potential mining hubs near Kalgoorlie – one based at Mandilla where we would envisage establishing a central processing facility, and the other at our Feysville project where we have previously reported a JORC resource of 116.1koz. “
Whilst the ink is still drying on its maiden resource statement for Mandilla, Anglo Australian already seems to be moving to add a project scoping study.
The company has wrapped pit shells around the key resource areas and outlined potential open pit mines at both Mandilla East and Mandilla South.
In addition, preliminary metallurgical testwork is showing outstanding gold recoveries, with bench-scale testing recovering up to 98.4 per cent of the precious metal from bulk samples.
Other work programs now underway at Mandilla include flora and fauna surveys, in addition to geotechnical logging and hydrological surveys to assist in mine design – all of which will expedite a move into the feasibility study lane.
Interestingly, the Mandilla gold project now boasts a JORC resource of 15.6 million tonnes at 1 gram per tonne gold. However ongoing drilling hints that this may just be the beginning of the story.
Recent drill results come from outside the resource area and include 9 metres at 4.21 grams per tonne gold from 85m and 38m at 1.06 g/t from 78m. These results sit more than 130m outside the Mandilla South resource area and will drive the pit shell deeper and southward as the deposit continues expand and take shape.
Mr Ducler said:“Stepping back and looking at the broader area, it’s also important to make the point that we are still at a relatively early stage in our understanding of the controls on gold mineralisation at Mandilla. We have made a fantastic start with 500.4koz on the board and over 12,000m of drill results still outstanding.”
“With considerable extensional and infill drilling still to do, we see huge opportunities to grow the known deposits both along strike and at depth, and to make new discoveries within the broader mineralised trend.”
Anglo Australian has a long history of mining and exploration at Mandilla and now looks to have cracked a tough nut at the discovery.
However, with drilling continuing to return broad intercepts of gold mineralisation and the gold-rich system showing marked similarities to Red 5’s 4.1-million-ounce King of Hills gold deposit north of Leonora, there is likely to be an ongoing stream of updates from this exciting corner of WA’s eastern goldfields.
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By Matt Birney
