High-grade gold intersections up to 175m down plunge of where the Main Zone at the Paulsens gold operation indicates the rich orebody continues far beyond where previous operators had realised.

The discovery at Paulsens harkens back to when Northern Star made what was a company-making when it found the first extension to the Main Zone in 2009.

Now some 14 years later Black Cat Syndicate (ASX:BC8) has intersected thick zones of quartz -pyrite veining immediately down plunge from the Main Zone Resource, extending mineralisation by at least 175m, in its most significant drill program since listing in 2018.

The company believes that with further drilling, this extension has the potential to add mine life or increased production rates above those in the recently completed Restart Study which showed potential cashflow of $81 million without any contribution from the latest drilling results.

A total of nine holes targeting the Main Zone extension have been completed to date, with eight intersecting broad intervals of quartz veining up to 52m wide.

In this latest round of drilling, assays have been received for six holes intersecting the Main Zone down plunge, including 2.62m at 8.10g/t gold from 101.30m, 3.37m at 6.96g/t gold from 111.60m, and 2.26m at 9.24g/t gold from 102.79m.

Unfinished business up plunge

Black Cat managing director Gareth Solly says the results, which open up the potential to extend mine life and/ or production rates from the zone that has produced about 1Moz to date are “extremely encouraging”.

“None of this has been included in our recent Restart Study and is all upside,” he adds.

“Importantly, the Main Zone remains open down plunge and has unfinished business up plunge.

“In a mine that has delivered 1,000oz per vertical metre, finding another 175m of plunge extension is significant to both Paulsens and more broadly for Black Cat. This is just the beginning for the Main Zone’s next phase.” 

Near-mine exploration

A restart decision for the Paulsens Gold Operations is already imminent and it is not hard to see why given the estimated revenue of $355.9m and after tax operating cash flow of $81.2m from the recovery of 123,000oz of gold to deliver a very attractive internal rate of return (a measure of return on investment) of 75% using a $2,900/oz gold price.

This revenue and production will be delivered over an initial mine life of three years at an all-in sustaining cost of $1,892/oz – well within the lower half of Australian producers – and a low-risk, pre-production capital expenditure of just $34.3m that will be paid back in just 14 months.

Near-mine exploration drilling is ongoing, testing several resource extension and geophysical targets, including ongoing drilling of the extensions to the Main Zone, Gabbro veins and several conceptual targets to known lodes in the untested Hangingwall zone.

 

 

 

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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