Brightstar has upgraded contained gold resources at its Cork Tree Well project by 6% to 252,100 ounces based on infill and extensional drilling carried out late last year.

Importantly, the new resource for the project in WA’s Laverton Gold Belt provides a greater level of confidence in the mineralisation with respect to its location, morphology, and grade consistency.

Brightstar Resources (ASX:BTR) adds that the new interpretation provides a more realistic geological shape for mine design and scoping / feasibility activities.

There is also potential for further growth as the Cork Tree Well Mineralisation remains open down-dip and along strike with many high-grade intercepts remaining to be followed up at depth.

“These results confirm Brightstar’s confidence in the CTW project and support further investment in the project. The resource is proving to be robust and consistent with previously published models and is still growing,” managing director William Hobba said.

“We are excited to grow the project further and focus on the immediate exploration upside as we progress this excellent orebody towards potential production.”

New resource interpretation

The new resource interpretation for Cork Tree Well is similar to previous interpretations with a steep to moderately east-dipping structurally hosted orebodyHowever, the new model does not split out thin lodes of higher-grade material and exclude the lower grade between, rather it provides an opportunity to capture material that was not previously in the resource but which will need to be removed in any open pit mining solution for the project.

Grade control could still potentially be used to selectively mine the higher-grade material and lower grade material separately and have high and low-grade stockpiles for more flexibility in any milling schedule.

The new Cork Tree Well model is believed to have a far more prudent geological interpretation with orebody shapes which are far more reasonable for mine planning.

Increasing widths at depths also suggest the potential for larger scale underground bulk mining opportunities that could not have been considered earlier.

Follow-up RC drilling carried out in June will be integrated into this dataset when all results have been returned and the interpretation revisited.

Brightstar will now look to start a Pre-Feasibility Study to determine the potential to progress the resource to a JORC 2012 compliant Ore Reserve.

 

 

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.

 

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