Special Report: Drilling at Kingwest Resources’ (ASX:KWR) historic Menzies Gold project is hitting high grade gold outside previously defined mineralised areas — which bodes well for an approaching resource upgrade in 2021.
Drilling within the Lady Shenton, Lady Harriet and Yunndaga Systems at Menzies is hitting coherent zones of high-grade gold that keep getting bigger.
Kingwest says the increased scale and higher grade of the identified gold lodes will translate to a solid upgrade of the existing 319,900oz resource in late Q1 2021.
The most recent drill results include a highlight 11m at 7.13 g/t gold from 62m and 5m at 11.72 g/t gold from 46m.
Mineralisation still remains open at depth and along strike, Kingwest managing director Ed Turner says.
“The drilling is still mainly only to a depth of 100m below surface,” he says.
“The discovery of blind, high-grade shoots, of the tenor mined by the early miners in the late 1890s and early 1900s, is exciting.
“The Yunndaga mine was exploited to a total depth of over 600m below surface which shows the extent of mineralisation in the field and the depth potential of all high-grade shoots at Menzies.”
Activity at Menzies continues, with 30 holes for 4000m of resource definition drilling and 1000m of exploration drilling planned in the current program remaining although these may be further extended.
The upcoming Mineral Resource Estimates will be used for mining studies early in 2021.
“The increased scale and higher grade of the identified gold lodes will translate to a resource upgrade scheduled for later in Q1 2021 when the campaign is completed, and all assays have been received,” Turner says.
“The shallow infill and extensional results obtained will be used to evaluate the immediate open-pit mining potential to determine the short-term economic potential of the resources.
“Additional deeper drilling will continue to evaluate the longer-term underground mining potential of the MGP deposits.”
A maiden 5000m air-core drilling program has also kicked off at the underexplored, highly prospective Goongarrie Gold Project (GGP), about 40km south of Menzies and 90km north of Kalgoorlie.
Goongarrie covers an 18km section of the gold-mineralised Victorious Basalt/Black Flag beds contact, which also hosts Bardoc Gold’s (ASX:BDC) 1.7-million-ounce Aphrodite gold deposit and Ardea Resources’ (ASX:ARL) Aphrodite North gold discovery at Kingwest’s southern boundary.
There’s a 3.5km section of this contact outcropping at surface within Kingwest’s leases, hosting the former Goongarrie Lady and Jenny’s Reward gold deposits.
Kingwest believes that the remaining 18km section — unexplored because the gold-rich contact is blanketed under a shallow salt lake — could be hiding new gold discoveries.
This article was developed in collaboration with Kingwest 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.