Brightstar Resources has extended its 252,000-ounce Cork Tree Well gold deposit, 30km north of Laverton in Western Australia’s Northern Goldfields, with a successful 6000m, 30 RC hole-drilling campaign.
Assays confirm gold-mineralised extensions along strike and at depth with mineralisation still open at depth and along strike to the north. The company’s best new results include 10m at 4.54 grams per tonne gold from 192m, including 2m at 17.23g/t, 2m at 11.81g/t gold from 172m and 13m grading 1.83g/t gold from 143m.
The company’s finds will be incorporated into an updated resource estimate which will inform mining feasibility studies currently in progress and due for delivery by the middle of the year.
Brightstar says most of its gold intersections are outside of its current 252,000-ounce JORC resource and are confirmed upside, both along strike and at depth. Follow-up drilling programs are being planned to continue the growth of the Cork Tree Well gold resource this year.
The company’s extensional and infill drilling was designed to identify mineralisation outside of the current Cork Tree Well resource of 5.61 million tonnes at 1.4g/t gold for the 252,100 ounces. Management ordered extra drilling to target areas where it wanted to build up its resource confidence in a bid to underpin its current scoping studies.
Drilling intersected significant mineralisation in 20 of the 30 drill holes. The northernmost hole of the March program intersected 13m at 1.83g/t gold from 143m depth, down-dip of previous intercepts including 7m going 3.11g/t from 119m.
Brightstar says it indicates that the structures are still mineralised, continuous and remain open down-dip – although it believes further drilling is required to fully understand the depth and quality of the area’s mineralisation. In October last year, an intersection from a hole even further north reported 5m at 9.46g/t gold from 103m.
Brightstar Resources managing director Alex Rovira said: “It is pleasing to see continued high grade results returned from the RC drilling program at CTW. Encouragingly, the assays received continue to highlight that the mineralisation is still open at depth and along strike, and drill planning is currently underway to continue exploration at CTW to further expand the limits to the mineralisation.”
Brightstar will incorporate assays from the recent program, in addition to those from 5500m of drilling last year, into its updated mineral resource estimate. That figure will feed into the scoping study to help assess the prospects of restarting the Brightstar processing plant in Laverton.
Future drill campaigns at Cork Tree Well will incorporate diamond drilling to support metallurgical and geotechnical studies to progress the project towards potential mining operations.
The company says its existing processing infrastructure at the Brightstar gold mine has the potential to facilitate a low-capital and fast-tracked restart for operations, subject to regulatory approvals and successful feasibility studies. It says additions to its Cork Tree Well resource have the potential to further assist the project’s economics, mine life and scheduling. The deposit is on a granted mining lease.
Brightstar has a JORC resource of 8.9 million tonnes at 1.6g/t gold for 460,000 ounces. This will increase by 505,000 ounces of gold when a merger with Kingwest Resources is completed this month.
Kingwest has a JORC resource of 11.7 million tonnes at 1.33g/t gold and the combined total of about 1 million ounces of gold, all on granted mining leases, should significantly enhance the restart opportunities for the Brightstar gold processing plant.
Cork Tree Well is a substantial gold resource and its growth could well enhance that restart opportunity.
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By Terry Bates
