Norwest Minerals lands key Bulgera mining lease

• Norwest Minerals secures mining lease over its Bulgera gold project in the Eastern Gascoyne
• The company is looking to revise the resource model using current gold prices
• Planning is underway for further resource drilling to test near-surface targets and deeper gold lodes

Special Report: Norwest Minerals has been granted the mining lease over its Bulgera gold project in WA’s Eastern Gascoyne region, putting it a key step closer to short-term cash flow.

The 2435 hectare mining lease includes the historical Bulgera gold mining centre where ore was last mined and hauled to the 1.8Mtpa Plutonic gold plant just 50km to the west in 2004.

Norwest Minerals’ (ASX:NWM) Bulgera project has a resource of 6.3Mt grading 1.07g/t gold for a contained resource of 217,600oz

This resource was last drilled and modelled in 2021-22, when the precious metal was priced at $2500/oz. Now with the current gold price exceeding $5000, drilling and revision of the model are expected to deliver a significant increase in the project’s scale. .

“The granting of ML 52/1085 is a significant milestone for Norwest and the Bulgera gold project, marking an important step in solidifying our plans for cashflow generation in the short and longer terms,” chief executive officer Charles Schaus said.

“The rising gold price has significantly bolstered the Bulgera project economics with the company reviewing options to exploit this valuable gold asset for the benefit of all stakeholders.”

A final decision on a capital raising has been deferred due to volatility in markets, the award of the mining lease and expected boost to gold resources.

Bulgera project

The Bulgera and nearby Marymia East package totals 26,800 hectares with the former covering the northeastern extent of the Plutonic Well greenstone belt. It is linked to the Plutonic gold plant via a well-maintained haul road extending 50km to the southwest.

Its current resource offers the potential for cashflow generation in the short and long term.

Mineralisation along the entire Plutonic Well greenstone belt has continually shown the highest gold grades occur below 100 vertical metres.

NWM is planning resource drilling at Bulgera to define further gold at the newly granted ML 52/1085.

This will test near-surface gold zones in and around the historical mining centre, near-surface targets along strike identified by historical surface geochemistry, and deeper gold lodes that extend below the shallow 2004 open pits.

The company is also investigating the economics of recovering gold contained in its >2Mt dumps, which are believed to be composed primarily of low-grade (less than 1g/t gold) oxide material that was dump by historical miners.

While this material was not viable in 2004, current high gold prices make  low-grade material that can be simply loaded and hauled to a local plant potentially economical.

This article was developed in collaboration with Norwest Minerals, 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.