Spartan Peppers up delicious Dalgaranga gold

Dalgaranga resource now close to 3 million ounces of gold
Deposits compare favourably to some of the world’s richest
Spartan is looking at further aggressive growth from fresh discoveries

Special Report: Spartan Resources is now the bearer of a 2.37Moz at 8.7g/t high-grade resource after almost doubling up the Pepper deposit at Dalgaranga.

A 99% uplift has the deposit now standing at 873,400oz at 10.3g/t, driving a 71% lift in Spartan’s high-grade underground indicated resource to 1.87Moz at 9.81g/t just 600m from the Dalgaranga plant.

Spartan Resources (ASX:SPR) has already got the green light for underground mining at Dalgaranga and is well on the mid-tier march after logging a stream of successes through a high-priced gold market in the Western Australian Murchison region.

The full Dalgaranga project resource now holds 15.90Mt at 5.61g/t gold for 2,868,900 ounces with 75% classified as indicated after four successive upgrades since Spartan’s discovery of the Never Never deposit.

The resource is yet to include deep extensional holes dug into Never Never and a new ‘Freak’ discovery now being advanced to resource status.

Polishing up Pepper

Interim executive chair Simon Lawson said the upgrade was an exceptional result which once again reflects the extraordinary efforts of the Spartan team.

“In the space of less than six months since we posted our maiden inferred resource for Pepper of 438,100oz at 7.66g/t, the drilling success we have achieved has translated into a phenomenal 99% increase in ounces and 35% in grade,” he said.

Lawson added the new high-grade resource is a remarkable result, particularly considering that more than 767koz are now classified at the higher confidence indicated level at 12.18g/t.

“This provides unequivocal evidence of the exceptional endowment of this spectacular high-grade gold system,” he said.

“The updated Pepper MRE is the key driver of the December 2024 resource update, which takes the combined high-grade underground MRE for the neighbouring Never Never and Pepper Gold Deposits to 2.3Moz at a phenomenal average grade of 9.3g/t.”

“Of this, 80% or 1.86Moz at a grade of 9.81g/t, is in the indicated category and available for conversion to ore reserves.”

Lawson noted these indicated ounces will now underpin the already progressed mine scheduling work and feasibility studies.

“In this regard, it’s important to highlight the incredible endowment of the two underground deposits, with the ounces per vertical metre for the updated high-grade underground MRE increasing by 20% to 2,735ozpvm,” he said.

“As we go deeper into the deposits, by combining Never Never and Pepper, this figure soars to 4,502ozpvm.

“This would see the Never Never/Pepper deposits compare favourably with some of the richest and highest-grade underground deposits globally and gives us great confidence that we have a very robust underground mining proposition on our hands with multiple mining fronts and a diversity of ore sources.”

He went on to say that while Spartan is already firmly on track to becoming a leading mid-tier miner, its recent Freak discovery was immediately adjacent to Pepper, and SPR was not slowing down exploration any time soon.

The company believes its new prospect is rapidly emerging as an exciting new mineralised position with potential for considerable complementary scale and grade, and Lawson said it would continue to aggressively drill new prospects.

“Our intention is to continue to deliver further robust MRE upgrades in 2025 and beyond. The Spartan march is not slowing down,” he said.

Brownfields bounty

Spartan is not alone in seeing neglected brownfields areas and past-producing mines holding the potential for untapped deposits, but it has certainly become one of the great successes.

From just 79,600oz at slightly under 3.8g/t when the mine entered maintenance in 2022, Spartan has turned Dalgaranga into the big-time gold play we know today – and itself into a $1.5 billion-plus company in the process.

The company has not yet made it apparent when it expects to make that landmark first pour, but rather it intends to work systematically toward its restart as gold remains trading comfortably over US$2600 an ounce.