Forrestania Resources has delivered a belter of a resource upgrade at its British Hill project in Western Australia, lifting the global inventory to a hefty 175,690 ounces of gold, largely supported by recent drilling at site, which has delivered deep, high-grade gold hits, including a 29-metre intersection grading an impressive 3.91 grams per tonne (g/t) gold from 220m downhole.
The company says the results have successfully extended mineralisation at depth below the existing resource, helping drive a solid 39 per cent increase in its gold inventory. Notably, the upgrade has also substantially de-risked the project, lifting the higher-confidence indicated resource by 16.5 per cent to 100,260 ounces from 2.03 million tonnes grading 1.54g/t gold.
The headline hit was the star of a recently concluded six-hole, 1940m reverse-circulation drill campaign designed to test for extensions to the existing resource at British Hill, located 75km south-southeast of Southern Cross in the revered Yilgarn Minerals Field.
Other significant intercepts from the program reinforced the deposit’s consistency, including a thick, shallow hit of 32m at 1.42g/t gold from just 32m. Another hole returned a solid 26-metre section going 2.06g/t gold from a shallow 48m.
Importantly, the drill bit also delivered multiple mineralised zones in all six holes. A prime example of this included a 229-metre hole, which hit a 35-metre intercept grading 1.08g/t gold from 29m, followed by 14m at 2.81g/t gold from 142m and 11m at 2.48g/t gold from 215m.
The remainder of Forrestania's drill program is continuing with 3 RC rigs focused on resource extensions along and down dip.
Forrestania Resources chairman David Geraghty said: “These results reinforce our view that British Hill has the potential to develop into a meaningful gold asset within Forrestania's growing project portfolio. The consistency of mineralisation across the recent drilling, together with the outstanding results returned from deeper portions of the system, provides strong encouragement for further resource growth. The updated mineral resource marks not only the establishment of a sizeable gold inventory,but the significant increase in higher confidence indicated resources."
For Forrestania, the success at British Hill slots neatly into its aggressive regional consolidation strategy that is rapidly transforming the company from a grassroots explorer into an emerging producer. The centrepiece is a classic hub-and-spoke model, with the $310 million acquisition of the Edna May gold project from Ramelius Resources delivering a 2.9-million-tonne-per-annum processing plant.
This complements Forrestania's existing Lake Johnston processing plant, 185 kilometres southwest of Kalgoorlie, where major refurbishment works are already well advanced. Once both are fully operational, the company will control a formidable combined processing capacity exceeding six million tonnes of ore per annum by early 2027.
Forrestania has already begun trucking material from British Hill to its Lake Johnston processing facility, providing the project with a potential pathway to production as the company advances its dual-hub gold strategy.
Over the past year, Forrestania has been on an acquisition blitz to build its resource base, snapping up Kula Gold’s high-grade Mt Palmer project for $58.2 million, Newcam Minerals’ Southern Cross assets for $24 million and the $93.5 million merger with Zenith Minerals to build a total resource base approaching 2 million ounces.
The newly-minted upgrade and results land at a time when the appetite for WA gold assets is running hot. The local sector has been buzzing with major corporate moves, including Genesis Minerals’ $5.6 billion bid for Vault Minerals and OceanaGold’s $776 million play for Ausgold. This wave of consolidation suggests that established producers are keenly focused on acquiring quality gold ounces, particularly those with existing resources and proximity to infrastructure, in a bid to build scale.
With a resource that keeps growing, a granted mining lease at British Hill, ore already being trucked from the project and two processing hubs coming online, Forrestania appears to be piecing together a serious production story. In a market that is rewarding scale and local ounces, every high-grade hit and resource upgrade from British Hill adds another layer of credibility to its ambition of becoming WA’s next significant gold producer.
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By Murray Ward
