- BTR resumes resource expansion drilling at new Sandstone gold project
- Company aiming to grow the 1.5Moz gold resource base
- Diamond drilling also planned later in the year
Special Report: Brightstar Resources has resumed its 2025 drilling program at the recently acquired 1.5Moz Sandstone gold project in WA, part of the company’s newly consolidated Sandstone district.
The Sandstone district integrates the Sandstone and Montague East gold project for a combined 3.Moz at 1.5g/t gold resource across three hubs, which the producer says provides an excellent opportunity for staged development.
The company also currently operates the underground Second Fortune Gold mine near Laverton, and last year completed the Selkirk Mining JV at Menzies pouring first gold in March 2024.
Now at Sandstone, drilling has commenced at the Lord Nelson deposit, with around 3,000m of RC drilling planned to complete the program started by the company in December last year.
It’s part of a much larger 55,000m RC drilling program planned at the consolidated project, aiming to upgrade and grow the existing resource base as well as targeting new exploration discoveries across the belt.
The Lord project area alone – which comprises the Lord Nelson and Lord Henry deposits – hosts a current mineral resource of 0.4Moz at 1.6g/t gold. Initial drilling there aims to infill and upgrade the project resource inside optimised pit shells.
The drilling is then slated to move on to the Vanguard Camp for a 4000m program aiming to extend and infill the high-grade, open-pit gold resource of 0.2Moz at 4.5g/t gold.
Ambitious resource expansion goals
The company also plans to undertake significant diamond drilling programs at the project later in H1 CY25.
Brightstar Resources (ASX:BTR) managing director Alex Rovira said the company is excited to kick off its 2025 exploration programs at the project.
“Brightstar’s geology and engineering teams have been working diligently since the Alto and Montague East acquisitions completed, planning aggressive exploration programs to meet our exploration goals of growing the total mineral resource beyond the current 1.5Moz at 1.5g/t gold and increasing confidence classification to underpin mining studies to advance the projects towards mining opportunities,” he said.
“The pipeline of advanced exploration targets across the package is particularly encouraging, and we aim to test many of these in the current program.”
Over the coming months, the company expects to receive RC drill results from the Montague-Boulder, Whistler and Lord Nelson deposits (Sandstone Hub) and diamond drilling results from the Lord Byron deposit (Jasper Hills – Laverton Hub).
In the meantime, drilling will also continue across the other hubs at Laverton and Menzies hubs, and work continues on the definitive feasibility study and the development activities at Brightstar’s second mining operation, the Fish underground mine (Laverton Hub), to complement the operating Second Fortune mine.
“Those drilling programs will assist in building robust future mining operations at the more advanced projects,” Rovira said.
This article was developed in collaboration with Brightstar Resources, 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.