Special Report: Wiluna has hit a ‘bonanza’ 880g/t of gold during infill drilling at its Golden Age deposit in Western Australia.

Wiluna Mining’s (ASX:WMX) strategy of drilling “under the headframe” is on the money, with extremely high-grades being uncovered at the Golden Age deposit, part of the much larger Wiluna Mining Centre.

The company today reported hits of 5.96m at 112.98 grams per tonne (g/t), including 0.41m at 185g/t and 0.65m at 880g/t. These would definitely be considered ‘bonanza’ grades.

There’s no actual definition of ‘bonanza’ by the way — it’s just a way to describe speccy gold grades.

In fact, there’s no official definition for high-grade either, but it’s generally accepted an orebody above 5g/t meets that criteria. And at the current high gold price, that is some extremely valuable gold.

Other top hits included 12m at 12.08g/t, 10.46m at 7.21g/t, 12m at 7.29g/t, 9.45m at 8.7g/t and 5.44m at 5.96g/t.

The news sent shares up as much as 30 per cent to an intraday peak of $1.60 on Wednesday morning.

 

Wiluna Mining (ASX:WMX) share price chart


Importantly, these new results — from a further 68 holes and 18,584m of drilling – will allow Wiluna Mining to complete a detailed resource and reserve estimate as part of its Wiluna stage-one sulphides expansion project.

“Once again we are seeing outstanding results from drilling ‘under the headframe’,” executive chair Milan Jerkovic said.

“The quality of the drilling results means we are confident of delivering our stage-one sulphide strategy. The drilling continues to define shallow high‐grade resource development targets.

“At the Wiluna Mining Centre from our first holes at Bulletin and Essex, Golden Age through to Calvert and the East Lode, this ongoing program has delivered consistent exceptional high‐grade drilling results which shows that Wiluna remains one of the largest undeveloped gold systems in Australia.”

Wiluna plans to deliver an updated resource in September and an updated reserve in December. The large amount of data is also expected to result in further resource and reserve updates in the first half of 2021.

“The sheer volume of data we now must evaluate is significant and the potential for the scale of the gold system at just the Wiluna Mining Centre is extremely exciting. We do believe the drilling results show we are awaking a sleeping giant,” Jerkovic said.

Wiluna map
Map of the Wiluna Mining Centre and planned stage-one sulphide expansion mining areas (coloured). Pic: Supplied.

 Aggressive gold production expansion strategy

Wiluna is aggressively pursuing production expansion as part of its turnaround strategy. The company has six drill rigs going full throttle on the ground at its Wiluna Mining Centre.

The goal is to build out the mining inventory to support a new sulphide concentrator, scheduled to start production in September next year to boost annual production to 120,000oz.

The current underground sulphide resource at Wiluna averages 4.8g/t but historically the average grade mined was around 7-8g/t.

According to Wiluna, every 1g/t increase in the grade could deliver an additional 25,000oz per annum of production in stage one and 50,000oz per annum under the company’s stage-two scenario.

“All the drilling we’ve done so far in the staged areas across the mine are giving us more ounces and better grade,” Jerkovic said at a recent investor event in Perth, WA.

“So hopefully that turns into better numbers.”

At the current gold price of just under $US2000, much lower grades become economic and Wiluna has already mined material grading at around 0.5-0.6g/t sitting in stockpiles that is now profitable.

“As I have continued to stress over the past six months, Wiluna Mining is a development and growth company currently focused on stage-one sulphide development commencing by September 2021, while expanding our high‐grade mineral resources and making new discoveries,” Jerkovic told the market today.

“This is the strategy and focus of the company.

“It is important that we emphasise our current operation, until the commencement of stage-one concentrate production in September 2021, is purely to provide valuable operating cashflow to assist in funding this transition to stage-one and producing gold concentrates to achieve our goal to become a Tier 1 gold mine in a Tier 1 jurisdiction”.

This article was developed in collaboration with Wiluna Mining, 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.