Wiluna Mining is gaining ground. Pic: Getty Images
Wiluna Mining strides ahead in its plan to start sulphide production
Mining
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Special Report: A fresh start for Blackham Resources, now known as Wiluna Mining, is paying off, with the company making good progress on its sulphide production strategy.
Today the newly rebranded Wiluna Mining (ASX:WMX) reported further shallow high-grade sulphide hits of up to 94.5 grams per tonne (g/t) from resource drilling at the Essex and Bulletin prospects.
Top hits from Essex included 8m at 5.31g/t, including 2m at 18.12g/t, from 168m; 8m at 15.2g/t, including 5m at 23g/t, from 248m; and 4m at 24.46g/t, including 1m at 94.5g/t, from 159m, 6m at 16.78 g/t, and 11 m at 10.51 g/t.
Meanwhile, Bulletin resource drilling delivered top hits of 7.4m at 15.82g/t from 40.56m and 4.1m at 4.88g/t from 44.15m.
The 45,000m drilling campaign is designed to substantially build out the +10-million-ounce Wiluna mine in Western Australia.
The multiple parallel lodes in the Essex drill holes also confirm mineralisation improves to the south and at depth.
Executive chair Milan Jerkovic said these “ongoing outstanding results “under the headframe” are continuing to deliver into Wiluna Mining’s stage-one sulphide strategy, with the company initially chasing shallow high-grade sulphides targets.
“Our plan to convert the large sulphide inferred resources at Wiluna into indicated resources continues to gather significant momentum and confidence with every new hole,” he said.
Blackham is working hard to build out its mining inventory to support a new sulphide concentrator, scheduled to start production in September next year to boost annual production to 110,000-120,000oz.
“The current underground sulphide resource at Wiluna averages 4.8g/t but historically the average grade mined was between 7 to 8g/t, and the Bulletin shoot alone produced 900,000oz at 8g/t,” Jerkovic explained.
“We’re targeting high-grade shoot discoveries because every 1g/t increase in the grade in the sulphides, could result in an additional 25,000oz per annum of production in stage one and 50,000oz per annum under our stage-two scenario, so grade is obviously extremely important to the project’s economics.
“Our four-to-five-year goal with the development of stage two is to become a Tier 1 gold mine in a Tier 1 jurisdiction.”
Wiluna Mining has seven drill rigs spinning right now and is well advanced in its 45,000m drilling program, which is due for completion at the end of June.
Drilling is continuing at the highly prospective Calvert and East/West deposits.
The latest results are expected to lead to a new resource update in late September and a reserve update in December.
Following the successful commissioning of stage-one sulphides, the company plans to at least double the size of its concentrator to produce +200,000oz per annum of gold and gold in concentrate.
