Western Gold Resources is stacking up the confidence in resources at its Gold Duke project. Pic: Getty Images
Western Gold defines higher confidence indicated resource at Gold King
Mining
share
- Western Gold Resources defines indicated resource of 10,000oz gold for its Gold King deposit
- Result improves confidence in Gold Duke resources as company advances project towards production
- More drilling required to increase resource confidence and size
Special Report: Western Gold Resources’ successful drilling in 2022 and 2024 has increased its confidence in the Gold King deposit in WA with the maiden calculation of higher confidence indicated resources.
The deposit now has an indicated resource of 176,000t grading 1.76g/t gold, or 10,000oz of the precious metal, within the overall resource of 427,000t at 1.91g/t gold, or 26,000oz.
Global measured, indicated and inferred resources within Western Gold Resources’ (ASX:WGR) broader Gold Duke project now sit at 3.25Mt at 2.1g/t gold, or 214,000oz of contained gold.
The increased resource confidence will support technical and economic studies that are currently underway as the company seeks to push the project into production.
It follows on the heels of the a late September scoping study, which estimated that a project producing a total of 34,000oz of gold would generate an estimated undiscounted accumulated cash surplus of $38.01m using a $3500/oz Australian gold price.
At spot prices, gold is current trading around $4250/oz.
Recent metallurgical testing has also highlighted the potential for excellent gold recoveries through a conventional crush, grind, and carbon in leach treatment after returning recoveries of up to 95.1%.
“The updated mineral resource estimate for the Gold King deposit highlights a better interpretation of the data from the drilling campaigns completed in 2022,” managing director Warren Thorne said.
“Together with data from geotechnical and metallurgical drilling completed in 2024 and incorporating current mining costs and the gold price, the updated MRE further validates the economic viability of the Gold Duke project as the company looks to move the Gold Duke project into production.”
Gold Duke project
The Gold Duke is about 35km southwest of Wiluna and covers 25km strike of the Joyners Find greenstone belt.
This northerly trending belt is ~47km long in the north-south direction and ranges from 1km to 7km wide in the east-west direction.
Gold mineralisation in the region is associated with two northerly trending shear zones, the Brilliant Find Shear Zone and Joyners Find Shear Zone.
Small historical mines are located at Brilliant and Bottom Camp though no modern mining has been undertaken save for a small trial pit dug by Linden Gold in 2002 at Golden Monarch.
Gold Duke has existing mining approvals at the Eagle, Emu, Golden Monarch, and Gold King deposits, which collectively host 61% of the project’s resources.
Further work
WGR says that further drilling is required at Gold Duke to add further confidence and potentially increase the overall resources.
This will include infill drilling of inferred resources and/or proximal target areas.
Future mine planning would ideally drill the deposit to at least 10m by 5m spacing.
This article was developed in collaboration with Western Gold 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.
