Kalgoorlie Gold Mining has made a savvy move into one of Western Australia’s most productive gold corridors, pegging a package of 15 tenements in the heart of the central Yandal Greenstone Belt.
The company’s new Central Yandal gold project covers 23.7 square kilometres of prospective ground that sits along strike and immediately southeast of the historic Gourdis and Vause gold mines.
The significance of the acquisition lies in its address. The Yandal belt is prime real estate for gold explorers, hosting behemoth deposits including Northern Star Resources’ Jundee gold mining centre 37 kilometres to the north, with a staggering endowment of 10 million ounces. The belt also lays claim to the Bronzewing mine 75 kilometres to the south, which has historically produced 4 million ounces.
KalGold says the tenure was secured through a disciplined, low-cost approach of monitoring and pegging expiring ground, giving it a strategic foothold in a world-class gold province without a hefty price tag.
The new ground is considered significantly underexplored, with historical records showing only minimal, shallow drilling and four of the newly acquired tenements having no recorded drilling at all.
The new grounds create a compelling exploration bet, particularly with the north-western corner of the tenement block sitting just 1.5 kilometres from the historic Vause laterite open pit workings. Additionally, the acreage lies 5.7 kilometres to the north of Northern Star’s still-operating Ramone underground mine, with its 346,000-ounce Millrose deposit just 26 kilometres further on.
Kalgoorlie Gold Mining managing director Matt Painter said: “We are excited to have successfully acquired a highly prospective tenement package with a large footprint in the northern Eastern Goldfields. The acquisition reflects KalGold’s disciplined approach to securing prospective ground in the right location and at the right cost.”
While the new project presents a tantalising greenfields opportunity, the company has been keen to emphasise that its flagship Pinjin gold project, in the 30-million-ounce Laverton Tectonic Zone, remains its primary focus. Drilling is currently underway at Pinjin, with the Central Yandal project seen as a complementary, high-upside addition to the portfolio.
At Pinjin, KalGold is pushing ahead on multiple fronts. A 21-hole reverse circulation drilling program for 3702 metres was recently completed at the Kirgella Gift and Providence prospects, where the company has already defined a 76,400-ounce gold resource. Assays from that campaign are now pending.
Attention is also shifting to a new target at Pinjin, known as the Laverton Tectonic Zone Flexure. The company is set to launch an extensive first-pass aircore campaign totalling 225 holes for 10,750m at the highly prospective, previously untested area.
Adding to the news flow is the company’s Lighthorse prospect, also at Pinjin, where a discovery hole 18 months ago delivered a cracking 17 metres at 4.81 grams per tonne gold. Follow-up work has since traced mineralisation over a 1.45-kilometre strike, with more drilling planned for next month.
KalGold’s systematic work has so far delivered a total resource base of more than 214,000 ounces of gold across its Pinjin and 138,000-ounce Bulong Taurus projects.
For KalGold, the two-pronged strategy of advancing a pipeline of targets in the Laverton belt whilst simultaneously opening a new front in the Yandal appears to offer multiple pathways to unearth discoveries.
Whilst the market waits for the next batch of assays from Pinjin, the discrete pegging of prospective ground in another of WA’s tier-one gold post codes could prove to be a very astute bit of business.
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Contact: matt.birney@businessnews.com.au
By Murray Ward
