Underground drilling at Black Cat’s Paulsens Gold Operation in Western Australia’s Pilbara region continues to demonstrate opportunities to hike gold resources while the precious metal hovers around record levels.

The company’s ongoing extensional and discovery drilling targeting the Main Quartz Zone in the upper part of the underground mine has identified numerous mineralised veins over 400m of plunge.

Notable assays include 0.65m grading 54.3 grams per tonne (g/t) gold from a down-hole depth of 49.65m and 1m at 29.5g/t gold from 107m in hole PGRD23027 and 4.14m at 2.89g/t gold from 7.86m (PGRD23057A) while visible gold has been observed in two additional drill holes that are pending assays.

That these high-grade discoveries are located in near surface areas close to existing underground workings is significant for Black Cat Syndicate (ASX:BC8) as they represent an early mining opportunity.

Resources are likely to see further growth in May given the combination of results received to date and the impact of adding a second underground drill rig in March. In its first two months of drilling Black Cat delivered a 190% increase in underground resources to 258,000oz at 10.8g/t gold in February this year.

“Paulsens is a high-grade gold mine that historically averaged a Resource of about 250,000oz during its 13-year production life, in which it produced over 900,000oz. This is typical for this style of underground deposit,” managing director Gareth Solly said.

“The Main Zone was the dominant source of that gold and these results show there is still plenty of opportunity in the upper parts of the mine.

“Areas of additional Main Zone mineralisation in the upper parts of the mine are expected to be part of the growing Resource. This will be in addition to the Gabbro Veins, which potentially represent an entirely new mining front for Paulsens.”

Restart decision

Black Cat expects to make a restart decision in mid-2023 and has already dewatered the 7km decline that provides ready access to the Gabbro Veins and other mining areas.

While it is too early to predict if the company will go ahead with restarting mining at Paulsens, the recent resource upgrade, encouraging drill results and existing, well-maintained mill and other infrastructure are all ticks in the right checkboxes.

That there is potential for regional discoveries just adds further to the likelihood of a restart.

 

 

 

This article was developed in collaboration with Black Cat Syndicate, a Stockhead advertiser at the time of publishing.

 

This article does not constitute financial product advice. You should consider obtaining independent advice before making any financial decisions.

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