Kaiser’s gold hits are a positive sign for A1 ramp up plans

Kaiser’s plans for further development at its producing A1 mine are looking increasingly attractive with drilling returning high-grade gold hits.

After all, it is not hard to be encouraged when drilling returns results such as 12.1m at 24.26 grams per tonne (g/t) gold from 20m at hole A1UDH-406, which is located within the areas that are currently being evaluated for development in the short term.

Drilling is continuing into resource definition for short and medium term production horizons.

Adding further interest, Kaiser’s initial 4,000m drill program already represents more drilling at A1 in a four-month period than it experienced in the three years prior.

Kaiser Reef (ASX:KAU) is looking to delineate the Queens Lode project as a priority for mechanised mining this year to supplement the current high-grade narrow vein airleg mining.

It added that while Queens Lode appears to be similar to the main A1 Dyke, its mineralisation and greater thickness lends itself to mechanical mining styles.

kaiser reef a1 mine drilling cross section — Drill trace of the two most recent holes at Kaiser Reef’s A1 mine. Pic: Supplied

A1 gold drilling

The company noted that the high-grade mineralisation at A1UDH-406 includes a higher grade zone of 5m at 44.29g/t gold with an even higher interval of 1m at 187.25g/t gold at the top within a strongly altered dyke.

Gold is mainly distributed throughout the altered rock and less commonly as visible gold within narrow quartz vein structures.

However, Kaiser added that the results in A1UDH-406 are not part of Queens Lode,the results in the top well are actually at the diorite dyke that are central to A1 gold mine.

The first holes in the current drilling program were aimed at providing geotechnical information and it’s only now that it has shifted to cover resource definition – initially at Queens Lode.

Holes will also be drilled for the first time to test mineralisation about 150m to 300m below the deepest historical workings.

Queens Lode represents the most advanced bulk tonnage exploration target with well-defined resource potential in the near term mineable material at A1.

Its wider mineralisation style may supplement and increase current production with Kaiser noting that the wholly-owned processing plant at Maldon has excess capacity available to treat a substantially increased rate of production.

This article was developed in collaboration with Kaiser Reef, 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.