Brightstar joins million-ounce club with resource upgrade

Brightstar Resources has cracked the magical million-ounce milestone after upgrading the resource for its Cork Tree Well deposit to a total of 1.02 million gold ounces across its Laverton and Menzies projects.

The independently-completed upgrade at the deposit saw Cork Tree Well increase by 20 per cent from 252,000 gold ounces up to 303,000 ounces of the precious yellow metal.

The company is now moving towards becoming WA’s next gold producer after last month completing its successful merger with Kingwest Resources – a move that brought their combined assets tantalisingly close to the million-ounce mark with 21 million tonnes going 1.5 grams per tonne of gold for a total of 965,000 ounces.

But with the addition of its Cork Tree Well upgrade, Brightstar’s total Laverton project resource now sits at 511,000 gold ounces, while the Menzies operation adds a further 505,000 ounces.

In April, assays from 13 holes drilled at Cork Tree Well confirmed gold-mineralised extensions along strike and at depth, with the best results including a 2m hit grading 4.23g/t gold from 106m. Drilling was designed to identify gold mineralisation outside the current JORC resource to increase it and also bolster the company’s confidence levels from the inferred to indicated category.

That theory has clearly been proven successful in practice with the latest upgrade representing a 65 per cent increase to the indicated category to 157,000 ounces at 1.6g/t gold.

Brightstar Resources managing director Alex Rovira said: “These upgrades have seen Brightstar now control a +1 million ounce resource base with tangible growth shown in just one of our many resources at the Laverton and Menzies Gold Projects. We look forward to updating the market with further news on our drilling at our projects and our scoping study which are both presently underway.”

The updated mineral resource was completed by independent consultant ABGM and will feed into the ongoing mining scoping studies. Importantly, Brightstar says its new estimate has highlighted that the model grade improves at depth and has also confirmed the presence of a high-grade plunging shoot within the Cork Tree Well orebody.

An upcoming reverse-circulation (RC) campaign will continue to test the shoot, in addition to targeting depth extensions to several holes that have returned impressive intersections including a 10m hit at 4.5g/t gold from 192m. Additional highlights to be tested show 22m going 2.84g/t gold from 127m and 29m grading 3.1g/t gold from 141m.

Brightstar plans on starting its RC drilling program at Cork Tree Well after the successful completion of the 5000m campaign currently underway at its Menzies gold project.

Earlier this week, the company announced it was set to join the ranks of WA gold producers, with mining to begin next month at its Selkirk open-pit gold mine that holds 30,000 tonnes of ore going more than 6g/t gold.

Brightstar says the current gold price provides a favourable economic environment to deliver strong potential margins and expects cashflow from processing to start rolling in early next year.

Now that the company has joined the ranks of the revered million-ounce club, the cashflow generated from Selkirk will certainly be put to good use as it seeks to add even more ounces with its upcoming drill campaigns.

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