Aurumin expands Sandstone gold footprint with Westar purchase

Aurumin is aiming to join the million-ounce gold club by entering into a binding heads of agreement with Westar Resources to purchase the historical Birrigrin mining centre around 70km north of its Sandstone operations.

Last month the explorer revealed a gold inventory of 946,000 ounces in WA’s Mid West region after tabling resource updates for the company’s newly acquired Central Sandstone deposits and incorporating its nearby Johnson Range project into one operation. 

The Birrigrin tenements contain 39 mapped shafts dating back to the early 1900s with recorded production grades up to 196 grams per tonne gold, however the site remains largely untested at depth by drilling. Historical workings include the Wheel Ellen site that produced 230 tonnes at a whopping grade of 196.2 g/t gold in addition to the Pelerin deposit that unearthed 2680 tonnes at 51.9 g/t gold.

The Stranger, Hawthorne and Ione deposits also historically produced grades above an ounce to the tonne gold.

Aurumin has agreed to pay Westar two million of its shares for the prospect equating to $168,000 at 8.4c per share. Westar picked up the tenement in 2021 from a consortium of prospectors for $80,000.

The new owner says a 2020 aeromagnetic survey and recent mapping have provided new insight into the geology of the area and multiple untested targets exist whilst recent prospecting has unearthed a number of gold nuggets.

In addition to the acquisition of Westar’s holdings, Aurumin has applied for an exploration tenement that borders the Birrigrin mining centre to the east, west and south.

Aurumin Managing Director, Brad Valiukas said: "We are pleased to be further expanding our footprint in the Sandstone region with this mining lease, covering the historical Birrigrin mining centre and its historical small scale, but high-grade, production.”

Aurumin officially acquired the 784,000-ounce Central Sandstone project in March after striking a $12 million cash and scrip deal with Middle Island Resources late last year that included a processing plant. Following a successful RC campaign at the site this year the explorer was able to include an additional 97,000 ounces in addition to boosting the gold grade of the operation’s Two Mile Hill underground deposit from 1.1 g/t to 1.6 g/t.

The Johnson Range project hosts a mineral resource of 64,700 ounces at a grade of 2.51 g/t gold and is located between Sandstone and Southern Cross.

If the historical prospectivity of the Birrigrin mining centre holds true, Aurumin could be sitting on a number of deposits that could kick its total gold resource past the magic million-ounce mark.

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