Gold resource growth on the cards as Norwest Minerals readies Bulgera drilling

• Norwest Minerals will launch a drilling campaign in mid-July to grow gold resources at its Bulgera project
• The 11-hole RC program will test shear hosted gold mineralisation down dip of near surface prospects
• Once drilling at Bulgera is completed, the rig will move to test several prospective gold targets at the Marymia East project

Special Report: Norwest Minerals is putting the pieces together for a drill program aimed at growing resources at its 217,600oz Bulgera gold project in WA’s Mid West  region.

The company has mandated Strike Drilling to carry out a 11-hole reverse circulation step-out drill program totalling 2600m to test shear-hosted gold mineralisation from 50m up to 200m down dip of the near surface prospects identified within the Bulgera mining lease.

Norwest Minerals (ASX:NWM) expects the program to start in mid-July with drilling to occur from surface locations previously cleared by WA’s Department of Energy, Mines, Industry Regulation and Safety, and the traditional owners.

Additional drill holes will be added once their surface drill locations are approved by the relevant stakeholders.

“This RC drilling program has the potential to increase our Bulgera gold resource inventory well beyond its current 217,500-ounce total,” NWM chief executive officer Charles Schaus said.

“Strike’s RC rig can drill to over 300m which will allow testing of the multiple gold bearing shear structures at depths known to host high-grade gold mineralisation along the Plutonic Well greenstone belt.

“In 2021 Norwest drilled below the old Bulgera pit to define shear hosted gold mineralisation to 550m down dip. Norwest is looking for similar extensions to the shear hosted gold being targeted in next month’s campaign.”

Targeting Bulgera growth

The Bulgera project is at the northeastern extent of the Plutonic Well greenstone which also hosts the long-running Plutonic gold deposit about 50km to the southwest.

Highlighting its prospectivity, about 50 open pit and underground gold deposits have been discovered and exploited along the strike of this gold-rich greenstone belt.

Bulgera was last drilled by the company in 2021 with gold mineralisation modelled and the resource estimate announced in March 2022.

The resource was recalculated in April 2024 by lowering the gold cut-off grade from 0.6g/t to 0.3g/t to reflect the economics of a rising gold price.

NWM believes that targeting below the known gold-bearing structures has potential for one or more major gold discoveries within the Bulgera mining lease as the Plutonic Well mafic-ultramafic mine sequence is known to have the best grades below 100m vertical depth.

Highlighting this, the company successfully drilled the Bulgera gold lode to more than 550m down dip in 2021. This lode currently has a resource of 1.38Mt at 2g/t, or 89,000oz of contained gold.

Once drilling at Bulgera is completed, the company will move the rig to the nearby Marymia East project to drill several gold targets recently identified from the analytical review of historical exploration drilling completed in the 1990s.

This article was developed in collaboration with Norwest Minerals, 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.