BMG to test gold targets next to major Eastern Goldfields mine

BMG Resources has kicked off a 30-hole reverse circulation drilling program for a planned 3000 metres at its Bullabulling North gold project near Coolgardie in Western Australia’s Eastern Goldfields.   

The program will follow up high-grade gold results from BMG’s earlier scout drilling, which include 2m assaying an impressive 18.1 grams per tonne (g/t) gold from 34m, 12m at 2.3g/t gold from 53m and 4m going 10.12g/t gold from 32m.

Scout drilling also intersected 4m assaying 2.37g/t gold from 53m and 1m running 10.6g/t gold from 58m.

Reconnaissance drilling at Bullabulling North has returned several near-surface intercepts of high-grade gold and identified four priority prospects in the tenement block: Poolmans, Peach, Grizzly and Flame.

BMG’s encouraging reconnaissance results are supported by historical assays from shallow rotary air-blast (RAB) drilling, which returned 5m at 2.5g/t gold from 36m, 2m running 5.7g/t from 49m, 1m going 3.02g/t gold from 37m, 2m at 1.71g/t gold from 41m and 3m at 5.9g/t gold from 27m.

BMG has been further motivated by the project’s proximity to explorer Minerals 260’s 60-million-tonne, 2.3-million-ounce Bullabulling gold mine.

The big mine sits about 14 kilometres south of the centre of BMG’s Bullabulling North tenement block within an interpreted continuity of north-south striking greenstone lithologies. The two properties enclose the same or very similar prospective ultramafic rocks.

A host of gold occurrences has been mapped along the greenstone trend over a total strike distance of almost 23km from Bullabulling North to about 6km south of the Bullabulling mine.

Intriguingly, the narrow but strike-persistent greenstone belt traces a classic sigmoidal or S-shaped structural trend along the entire 23km strike, which offers a possible clue to the regional structural stress regime that might have opened conduits for mineralising solutions and gold deposition sites. 

That structural model suggests the Bullabulling mine sits on the southern maximum stress centre - the sharpest arc of the ‘S’ - while BMG’s northern tenement block occupies the complementary northern stress centre. 

BMG has not failed to notice that Bullabulling has become one of the hot addresses in the Eastern Goldfields, following Minerals 260’s acquisition of the Bullabulling gold mine, described as one of Australia's biggest near-term gold projects. 

The mine was formerly owned by privately held Norton Gold Fields, which is majority owned by China’s largest gold producer, Zijin Mining Group.

The April acquisition of Bullabulling following a $200 million capital raising propelled Tim Goyder’s Minerals 260 to a current market capitalisation of just under $250 million.  

Apart from the Bullabulling North ground, BMG also holds two other strategically located tenement blocks within hailing distance of the Bullabulling gold mine.

These include Bullabulling West, centred a mere 4.5km west of the Bullabulling gold mine, and Bullabulling East, a smaller holding on a separate thin greenstone belt, 11.5km east of the big mine.   

The company’s tenement blocks west of Coolgardie are all well-situated, with two of them straddling the Great Eastern Highway. 

All of BMG’s ground offers ready access to existing transport infrastructure, extensive access to experienced mining services and several processing facilities within trucking distance.

BMG Resources non-executive chairman John Prineas said: “BMG’s reconnaissance drilling at Bullabulling has confirmed near-surface occurrences of high-grade gold – including intercepts such as 2m at 18.1g/t gold from 34m – giving us confidence in the prospectivity of the project for significant gold mineralisation.”

Meanwhile at BMG’s Poolmans prospect, multiple encouraging intercepts include 3m at 5.9g/t gold from 27m, 4m at 10.12g/t gold and 1m at 10.65g/t gold.

Drilling at Poolmans will test the extents of gold lodes along strike and down-dip, and also for parallel structures. The company will also drill scissored pairs of holes to better define the strike and dips of possible multiple lodes. 

BMG expects analytical results in late July to early August. 

Is your ASX-listed company doing something interesting? Contact: matt.birney@businessnews.com.au