The company says recent exploration has highlighted growing gold and base metal potential at Paulsens. Pic: via Getty Images.
Mining
Black Cat Syndicate is confident that ongoing exploration around its Paulsens gold project has the potential to build the mining inventory for the project’s restart.
Paulsens underground is one of Australia’s highest-grade gold deposits with a current resource of 328koz at 9.9g/t gold, with open pit and underground resources totalling 471koz at 3.6g/t gold.
The restart study for the project includes production of 136koz gold over the first 3 years with an All-in Sustaining Cost (AISC) of $1,892/oz.
Notably, the underground production head grade of 4.3g/t gold is in the top 10 for Australian gold producers and the AISC is in the lower half of Australian gold producers.
The project boasts massive upside, with limited exploration completed on regional opportunities including numerous gold and copper-lead-zinc anomalies.
Black Cat (ASX:BC8) is continuing its assessment of the regional gold and copper potential of the Wyloo Dome prospect, with recent rock chip sampling focused on the Paulsens East, High Noon and Goldilocks prospects as well as the ~2.5km long corridor from the Belvedere to Tombstone prospect.
High-grade copper samples from Belvedere-Tombstone have extended the footprint of surface copper mineralisation by ~900m to ~2.5km, with notable assays including 13.57%, 7.39%, 7.05% and 5.73% copper.
With only limited drilling, the >2.5km long Belvedere trend already has a resource of 30koz at 3.9g/t gold, which was partly included in the July 2023 restart study.
Drilling and mining studies have potential to expand Belvedere’s production forecasts for the next study update, which is expected in November 2023.
Significant gold results from other prospect areas include:
“Our ongoing field activities at Paulsens continue to highlight the growing gold and base metal potential in the region,” MD Gareth Solly says.
“Copper and other base metal results are vectors for gold mineralisation around Paulsens as well as targets in their own right.”
Paulsens also contains Australia’s third largest and second highest grade antimony deposit at Mt Clement, along with a gold-silver-copper-lead resource, where detailed bedrock mapping has been completed.
“Mt Clement continues to show strong growth potential of precious (gold-silver) and critical (antimony) mineral resources,” Solly says.
“All of these targets are within trucking distance of Paulsens, which is the only fully permitted gold processing facility within a 400km radius.
“These opportunities highlight the longer-term potential to build significant mining inventory at Paulsens.”
Surface RC drilling is planned to commence in mid-October 2023 along the >2.5km Belvedere trend, the ~1km Pantera prospect and the near-mine Apollo extension.
Additionally, mapping has identified several areas for follow-up field work at Mt Clement, which is currently being planned.
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.
Mining
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