Just a little more than three months after hitting the magical million ounce milestone in October last year, Bellevue Gold has now jacked up its inferred mineral resources at the Bellevue project northwest of Leinster in the WA Goldfields by almost 50%.
The ASX listed company increased the global JORC mineral resource at the project by 47% to 4 million tonnes grading 11.8 grams per tonne gold for 1.53 million ounces of contained gold.
The upgrade stems from recent drilling in the Bellevue Surrounds mineralised area with the company saying the resources are located from surface down to a maximum depth of 600 metres, which are all adjacent to the historical mine development.
In addition, a significant amount of the newly modelled high grade gold mineralisation is located much closer to surface.
Drilling in the fourth quarter of 2018 returned notable results such as 2.4 metres @ 26.1g/t gold from 269.89m down-hole, 3.9m @ 16g/t gold from 197m and 1.3m @ 35.2g/t gold from 75.6m.
This also confirmed that the Bellevue lode extends a further 230m south of historic underground workings with assays returning 2.4m @ 13.1g/t gold from 417.1m and 3.5m @ 12.3g/t gold from 411.8m.
Additional resource upgrades may be on the cards with management saying that mineralisation remains open on all lodes and that step-out expansion drilling is continuing with four diamond core drill rigs currently operating at the project.
The company is also investigating options for de-watering the historic underground workings to potentially provide access for infill drilling, further resource extension drilling, deeper drilling and geological face mapping.
Bellevue Managing Director Steve Parsons said: “The exploration team has discovered and delineated in excess of 1.5 million ounces of high-grade gold in just over 12 months since resource drilling commenced and at a very low discovery cost of less than AUS$15 per ounce.”
“This Bellevue Surrounds resource estimate is important for the project as it is located within metres of the historic underground mine development.”
“The company has now turned its attention to delineating further resource ounces from step-out drilling with the four drill rigs at the very high-grade Viago Lode and Western Corridor. We anticipate the next round of drill results in the very near future and a further resource upgrade in a few months’ time during the second quarter.”
The main Bellevue lode produced around 700,000 ounces of gold before it ceased production in 1997 at a very impressive half an ounce to the tonne.
It benefits from proximity to existing infrastructure such as grid power, flights via Leinster, sealed roads, water and services at Leinster, Leonora and Wiluna townships.
Building a resource of more than 1.5 million ounces of gold in just over 12 months is no small feat and it is a credit to both Bellevue and the prospectivity of its namesake project.
With more drilling underway and another resource upgrade expected in the near future, it will no doubt be interesting to see just how far Bellevue can take this project.
