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That’s Classic: Infill program ensures Kat Gap high-grade gold production
Mining
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Classic’s infill drilling to support final pit optimisation and design work for its Kat Gap project in WA has returned more high-grade gold intercepts.
Notable results are 1m grading 47.5 grams per tonne (g/t) gold from 20m, 1m at 23.9g/t gold from 64m, 2m at 14.86g/t gold from 29m including 1m at 25.5g/t gold from 29m and 6m at 4.08g/t gold from 48m including 1m at 11.5g/t gold from 52m.
These results were returned from 32 reverse circulation drill holes at the northern end of the infill drill program.
Classic Minerals (ASX:CLZ) has a further 42 holes to drill under the 109 hole program, which is being drilled at 10m by 10m and 10m by 5m spacings to provide a more accurate resource model data for final pit optimisation and design work.
This will in turn pave the way for the company to start production from the project.
Infill drill program
The company had embarked on the closed spaced infill drill program after bulk sample mining revealed that the ore zone demonstrates strong evidence of pinching and swelling of the main quartz veins over relatively short wavelengths of around 10m-15m.
To increase its confidence in the overall status of the current resource block model and to ensure adequate intersection of the higher-grade components of the gold ore zone, Classic moved to carry out the drilling to move the resource into the higher confidence Indicated category.
It will also reduce the number of grade control RC holes required in the pit once operations are underway.
Production plans
Late last month, the company carried out test work which proved that its Gekko gold plant could perform well above expectations.
The plant delivered more than 95% of the liberated gold through simple gravity processing, meaning that it could deliver better than expected production and cashflow at lower costs compared to a conventional gold recovery plant once Kat Gap enters commercial operations.
Classic recently secured $10m in funding under a binding term sheet from multi-selector conglomerate Goldvalley Brown Stone which paves the way for the extraction and processing of Kat Gap ore in sequential parcels of 100,000t.
The orebody will be mined under this arrangement until a production cap of 500,000t with a minimum average grade of 2.85 grams per tonne (g/t) gold has been mined and processed.
In return, Classic Minerals will share 30% of the net profits from gold production with Goldvalley until the funding is repaid.
This article was developed in collaboration with Classic 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.
