Since January 2017, the share price of advanced WA gold explorer Bellevue (ASX:BGL) has rocketed over 2300 per cent — from 2.5c to +60c per share – driven by success at its namesake historic project.

The company remains on multiple investor watchlists for good reason – it’s cashed up, drilling hard (there’s eight rigs on site), and edging closer to that all-important development decision.

Today, the company boosted total resources by 23 per cent to 2.2 million ounces, driven by a 400,000oz maiden resource at the +500m-deep 12.3-gram-per-tonne (g/t) ‘Deacon’ lode.

This resource comes from a 900m-long central portion of the ~2km-long mineralised strike at Deacon. Mineralisation remains ‘open’ in all directions, the company says.

Just check this out:

At Deacon alone there’s numerous high-grade intersections outside the resource awaiting closer-spaced drilling, like 3m at 12g/t gold.

A maiden indicated (higher confidence) resource at Bellevue is on track for next quarter.

In 2016, when Bellevue picked up its namesake historic mine, the explorer noted that major miner Barrick had offloaded it years earlier due to no ‘Barrick-sized targets’. Now Bellevue has genuine scale, boss Steve Parsons says.

“It is in the backyard of WA, it is growing rapidly and it is open in every direction,” he says.

“We have eight rigs drilling on site to both increase and upgrade the resource.

“In parallel with this aggressive program, we are about to start technical and economic studies as part of our countdown to becoming a substantial Australian gold producer.”

 

In other ASX gold news today:

Mark Bennett-led S2 Resources (ASX:S2R) has uncovered a new +1.2km long gold trend at its Aarnivalkea prospect in northern Finland, hitting grades up to 4.3g/t in shallow BOT drilling.

BOT drilling recovers a single sample at the point between the base of the glacial till (sediment) and the bedrock.

These are meaningful intersections, S2 says. In Finland you either hit something or you don’t.

“In Australia [the rock] is deeply weathered, so you can afford to drill more sparsely just to get that initial sniff of mineralisation. In Finland it’s the opposite,” Bennett told Stockhead last year.

“There’s no deep weathering. Anything that was weathered has been scraped away by glaciers and had a thin layer of clay dumped on top.

“So what you are looking for is very small. Statistically, very few holes drilled are likely to hit mineralisation. Not like Australia, where you have all the smoke around [a potential deposit].”

The new BOT anomaly is largely located on a gentle rise which can be drilled year-round, the company says — a diamond rig has already been sourced to begin drilling in mid-March.

READ: S2 is looking for mammoth deposits in the coldest parts of Finland