Assays from geotechnical diamond drilling at Cork Tree Well project yield gold grades of up to 16.83g/t gold
High-grade intercepts beneath current pit shell design indicate potential mineralisation extensions at depth
Pit shell designs from the 2023 Scoping Study using A$2,750/oz gold price significantly below current spot gold price
Geotechnical and metallurgical test work underway to contribute to PFS workstreams
Special Report: Non-priority geotechnical holes have underscored just how much of a treasure Brightstar Resources has at its Cork Tree Well deposit by returning high grade hits of up to 16.83g/t gold below the current pit shell design.
With an open pittable resource of 6.4Mt grading 1.4g/t gold for 303,000oz of contained gold, Cork Tree Well is the primary deposit at the company’s Laverton project in WA.
Brightstar Resources (ASX:BTR) plans to use ore from the deposit to provide baseload feed for a proposed restart of its processing facilities at the Beta deposit about 30km south of the Laverton township.
While the Cork Tree Well resource envelope is defined over a strike length of +3km and to a depth of 200m, this is based on detailed exploration that has thus far been limited by close proximity to historical open pits.
Aircore drilling completed to the north of this resource has already extended the strike length by +1.5km.
Meanwhile, diamond drilling to generate information within the ore zones and the designed pit walls, as well as recover material for metallurgical test work, returned high-grade gold hits that indicated that the company had just “scratched the surface”.
Notable assays from the diamond drilling included 34.4m at 7.94g/t gold from 43.5m in hole CTWMET004 that was drilled into the untested Delta deposit and 6.5m at 1.42g/t gold from 104m and 1.65m at 1.82g/t gold from 112m in CTWMET002, which was drilled below the historical open pit.
Meanwhile, hole CTWMET003 that was drilled into the unmined central deposit returned an outstanding intersection of 27.6m at 17.77g/t gold from 51m.
Cross sections of holes CTWGT007 and CTWGT008. Pic: Brightstar Resources
Pleasing gold intersections
Assays from 16 non-priority geotechnical drill holes – part of the 20-hole diamond drilling program – has now added to the growing body of evidence that mineralisation at Cork Tree Well extends below the current pit shell.
Assays such as 8.4m at 3.97g/t gold from 141.65m including 0.35m at 16.83g/t gold (CTWGT008) and 8.2m 1.67g/t gold from 103m (CTWGT007) provide confidence that substantial mineralisation extensions are present below the current pit shell design.
Both holes were drilled perpendicular to the orebody below the northern portion of the historically mined southern pit with gold mineralisation contained entirely within a quartz breccia sedimentary unit.
“It is pleasing to see further high-grade assays continuing from non-priority geotechnical holes from the diamond drilling program that was completed at Cork Tree Well,” managing director Alex Rovira said.
“CTWGT008 returned an intersection of 8.4m at 3.97g/t Au from 141.65m, which complements the previously announced intersection of 11.4m at 3.1g/t Au (CTWMET001) drilled 200m to the north.
“The metallurgical and geotechnical drilling campaign, conducted in Q1, represents the first diamond holes drilled at Cork Tree Well by Brightstar, with analyses of gold mineralisation now underway after the recent completion of geotechnical logging and sampling.
“Geotechnical parameters are being strengthened by the knowledge gained from this recently completed program.”
Current and future work
BTR is currently progressing metallurgical and geotechnical test work programs to feed into the pre-feasibility study workstreams.
It will also release further assay results from the remaining holes of the Q1 diamond drilling program at Cork Tree Well with geotechnical and metallurgical data feeding into the ongoing PFS to inform open pit mine design and process plant design criteria.
Additionally, the company is engaging with mining contractors and exploring processing options including early-stage engagements with regional processing facilities for toll-treating ore material.
This article was developed in collaboration with Brightstar 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.
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