Gold explorer Black Cat Syndicate is continuing to find high grade gold veins at its Paulsens mine in WA’s north, raising the prospect of growing what is already one of the richest high grade deposits in Australia.

Paulsens boasts an underground resource posted this month of 258,000oz at an incredible 10.8g/t, a grade eclipsed by the 14g/t-plus Coyote Central deposit at the Company’s second more advanced project, Coyote in the West Tanami.

It sets up Black Cat Syndicate’s (ASX:BC8) as one of the most interesting gold developers on the ASX, with engineering and mining studies to support a potential restart at Paulsens due in the middle of this year.

That case continues to build with new drill hits from the unmined Gabbro Veins, a new previously unmined area adjacent to, and up to 200m from, the existing decline sunk to access the Main Lode at Paulsens.

The results show that even after over 900,000oz of historic underground gold production, some of the best material at Paulsens has only been found after Black Cat acquired the mine from Northern Star Resources last year.

Significant results form 15 diamond holes recently returned from the assay labs include:

  • 2.00m at 39.90g/t Au from 18.75m; and 1.03m at 17.80g/t Au from 51.12m (22PGRD038)
  • 1.23m at 14.84g/t Au from 28.68m; and 1.55m at 6.14g/t Au from 60.68m; and 0.86m at 58.50g/t Au from 102.14m (22PGRD004)
  • 0.80m at 32.20g/t Au from 17.73m; and 0.56m at 13.90g/t Au from 58.74m (22PGRD025); and,
  • 0.79m at 13.60g/t Au from 42.40m (22PGRD039).

Impressive grades

“The Gabbro Veins continue to deliver impressive grades often with multiple veins intersected in each hole. A second rig will arrive this week as we ramp up drilling in the lead up to a restart decision,” Black Cat managing director Gareth Solly said.

“The Gabbro Veins represent a potential new mining front and host one third of the underground Resource which recently increased to 258koz @ 10.8g/t Au, based on results to the end of December 2022.

“Along with Coyote Central this is one of Australia’s highest grade gold deposits. A further two months of drilling has been completed since then and will continue throughout 2023, focussed on Resource growth and discoveries around existing underground infrastructure. The next Resource update is planned for May 2023.”

Resource due May

An update to the Paulsens resource is already likely, with a May date pencilled in for it to be announced.

It will be a quick turnaround from a recent upgrade this month which tripled the underground resource at Paulsens to over 250,000oz.

Paulsens already boasts a well maintained 450,000tpa mill and camp infrastructure, having been on care and maintenance in recent years.

Drilling at the high priority Gabbro Veins area, where infill and growth drilling is continuing, has been undertaken over a plunge of 600m, with mineralisation still open up and down that zone.

Meanwhile, Black Cat could be onto extensions to within the Main Lode to the north of the Paulsens mine, with potential extensions close to existing underground mining infrastructure.

Assays for five holes at the Apollo prospect are pending, with a photon assay trial also underway.

A similar trial at the Coyote operation found fire assays could be under-reporting gold grades in coarse gold diamond samples, raising the possibility gold grades could be even higher than the eyewatering numbers currently estimated.

 

 

 

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.

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