ASX-listed Horizon Minerals has wasted little time shaking off any festive season cobwebs and fired up the drill bit again as it edges closer to finalising a consolidated feasibility study on the potential development of its Boorara gold project near Kalgoorlie. The budding gold producer has resumed its massive exploration campaign targeting a multitude of advanced and early-stage prospects within 75 kilometres of the proposed stand-alone Boorara gold processing plant site.
Horizon’s planned $5 million, 50,000-metre diamond, RC and aircore drilling program this year involves four drill rigs cutting a swath across its 890 square kilometres of gold tenements within the 75km radius of Boorara.
The Perth-based company’s prime exploration objectives in 2021 are to grow and or upgrade its global gold resource inventory of 1.05 million ounces and to increase its potential gold production profile through organic growth from its array of project areas on major geological structures within WA’s world-class Goldfields region.
Horizon intends testing high-priority greenfields – or what it calls new discovery – targets including the Windanya, Lakewood, Yarmany, Kanowna South, Black Flag and Balagundi prospects and completing resource definition drilling for maiden mineral resource estimates at Coote, Baden Powell, Capricorn and Brilliant North.
In addition, the company says it will look to extend resources beyond current mineralised envelopes along strike and at depth at Boorara, Crake, Peyes Farm, Jacques Find and Golden Ridge. It also plans to carry out resource definition and extension drilling at the recently acquired Kalpini gold project and the Penny’s Find underground JV project. Neither of the latter mature assets have been factored into the overall project’s current multi-deposit gold resource estimate.
The baseload Boorara measured, indicated and inferred resource anchors the 1.05-million-ounce combined gold resource position, speaking for 507,000 ounces, with a bunch of satellite deposits making up the numbers.
Horizon says updated mineral resource estimates are expected to be delivered in the March and June quarters.
The 50,000m drilling blitzkrieg builds on Horizon’s 21,000m of mainly reserve conversion drilling undertaken since August last year. The drilling was focused on Boorara and the core satellite deposits at Rose Hill, Binduli and Teal as part of the consolidated feasibility study currently in train and due for release in the June quarter.
Horizon Minerals Managing Director, Jon Price said: “With the reserve drilling to support the consolidated feasibility study mostly complete, we are turning our attention to the new discovery exploration program with multiple high-priority targets to be tested across the entire tenement portfolio and all within 75km of Boorara.”
“The fully funded program will test areas that have had limited to no drilling undertaken in recent times, particularly below cover where historic shallow drilling has never been followed up.”
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By Matt Birney
