The Menzies resource has been upgraded but Kingwest is not slowing down. Pic: Getty
Kingwest upgrades Menzies gold resource, eyes further growth
Mining
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Special Report: Kingwest’s belief in the prospectivity of its Menzies Gold Project (MGP) has been validated with a 37 per cent increase in near surface resources.
The MGP in Western Australia’s Eastern Goldfields region now hosts a resource of 4.78 million tonnes grading 2.08 grams per tonne (g/t) gold for just under 320,000 ounces of contained gold.
This is an 87 per cent increase in resources since the project was acquired in September 2019, highlighting the rapid progress that Kingwest Resources (ASX:KWR) has made since then.
The company says the upgrade consists of an updated resource estimate for the Lady Shenton deposits and a maiden estimate for the Stirling deposit.
This upgrade follows successful drilling of high-grade underground exploration targets at First Hit, which returned 3m at 158.4g/t gold below historical underground workings, and at Yunndaga where the deepest mineralisation at the MGP was intersected to date.
The Yunndaga hole returned a hit of 1m at 25.4g/t gold from 731.5m, 60m below the historical underground workings of the Princess May Shoot.
Results above 5g/t gold are generally considered to be high-grade.
“We are very pleased to continue to increase our near surface gold resources at Menzies whilst at the same time we explore for higher-grade resources at depth, along strike from and between these near surface deposits,” Kingwest chief executive officer Ed Turner said.
“We are now in a position to advance towards scoping studies in the second half of 2020 as we recently did at Goongarrie Lady and investigate the best pathway towards economic production of these deposits.”
Goongarrie has a contained resource of 23,900 ounces of gold.
And there might be more upgrades coming. Turner told Stockhead earlier this month that additional drilling in the second half of 2020 could add to the company’s gold inventory.
Pit optimisation and economic studies are also underway for all of the MGP’s deposits.
Proven gold production
The Lady Shenton system is a structurally controlled mining centre at the MGP that delivered 191,000 ounces of gold at a very high-grade of 32g/t prior to 1946 and a further 30,300 ounces of gold at 2.7g/t gold from open pit mining in the 1990s.
It is one of five underground mines that produced a total of 650,000 ounces of gold at an average grade of 22.5g/t between 1895 and 1943.
Kingwest notes that extensions of this mineralisation that extend at depth and are repeated adjacent to the main workings have been discovered since the completion of open pit mining in the 1990s.
Stirling was discovered by the company’s drilling in 2019.
The company considers the Lady Shenton, Stirling and Pericles deposits to be one mineralised system.
