Metallurgical testwork on samples from Surefire Resources’ Yidby gold project in Western Australia’s Murchison region alludes to almost 70 per cent more gold than previously reported by the company.
And it is a timely finding for Surefire as the gold price continues to glitter, trading last week at a stunning all-time Australian high of $3308 per ounce.
Management had sent a package of mineralised core samples from three diamond holes sent to ALS Global laboratories in Perth for column leach testwork. It says results from the rigorous study reported a 66.3 per cent gold recovery on a coarse crush size of 100 per cent passing 6.3mm over the 69-day program.
Additionally, it says testwork on the bulk sample indicates a 68 per cent increase in gold content compared to the original quarter-core assay result. The latest study follows preliminary sighter level testwork carried out in late 2022 that showed gold recoveries up to an astounding 99.5 per cent.
Collectively, results from the two metallurgical studies imply previous drilling results may have significantly underestimated the quantity of gold hosted in the 3km-long mineralised corridor at Yidby.
Surefire Resources managing director Paul Burton said: “Metallurgical testwork results always provide more reliable and insightful information than original drill results. For Yidby, these results are very encouraging and provide a solid step up for the project at a time when gold is of increasing value.”
Yidby covers 114 square kilometres in the southern portion of the Yalgoo-Singleton greenstone belt, about 350km north of Perth. It is home to Capricorn Metals’ developing 3.2-million-ounce Mt Gibson gold project and Warriedar Resources’ 945,000-ounce Golden Range deposit.
Surefire picked up the promising patch in 2020 and promptly set to work, conducting soil geochemistry and geophyisical programs to scour for mineralised gold systems beneath a blanket of transported cover. It says two prominent mineralised shears – Fender and Yidby – have been identified as the primary hosts to gold mineralisation, with the latter housing spectacular lodes of up to 82.5 grams per tonne gold.
Regionally, the gold mineralisation trend has been etched out through a 3km strike length, extending from the Fender prospect in the north down to the untested southern “Money” gold-in-soil anomaly.
Multiple phases of drilling in 2021 and 2022 kicked up a string of notable hits including 56m grading 1.97g/t gold from 44m, 52m coming in at 1.4g/t from 32m and a further 44m averaging 2.77g/t from 149m. They are impressive stand-alone intercepts.
Apply the 68 per cent upgrade and the same intersections pump out 56m grading 3.31g/t gold, 52m coming in at 2.35g/t and 44m at an eye-catching 4.65g/t.
The gold price continued its meteoric rise last week, spurred on by heightened global inflationary pressures. Leading investment bank Goldman Sachs recently increased its average gold price forecast for 2024 from US$2090 per ounce (AU$3186), targeting a move to US$2300 per ounce (AU$3506) by year’s end.
So, stumping up an extra 70 per cent gold at Yidby could only be a good thing for Surefire, with the price numbers squarely in its favour.
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By Helen Barling
