After a flurry of RC drilling Kairos Minerals has tabled a significant increase to the mineral resource at its Mt York gold project in Western Australia’s Pilbara region. The company says the operation now boasts a 1.1 million ounce asset base up about 26 per cent from previous projections.
The project now boasts a 28.01 million tonne resource running 1.23 grams per tonne gold up from a 2020 figure of 20.9 million tonne at 1.30 g/t gold for 873,500 ounces.
Despite the bumper results Kairos says the operation still has further growth opportunities with mineralisation at Mt York found to be open in all directions and only limited by the lack of a suitable drill rig.
The uplift follows 15,000m of drilling across a number of prospects in 2021 and also reflects the extension of an assumed pit depth that has been excluded from the previous figure.
The overhaul was helmed by Encompass Mining and used Kairos-developed wireframes to construct a model of the operations resources using a 0.3 g/t gold envelope.
The updated resource includes results from the company’s Main Hill, The Gap, Breccia Hill, Gossan Hill, Iron Stirrup and Old Faithful deposits.
Kairos is now eyeing additional growth with plans in place to launch a new 20,000m campaign in the December quarter.
The looming probe is aimed at targeting a series of higher-grade plunging shoots that remain open at depth and increasing confidence in the resource ahead of a pre-feasibility study or “PFS”.
The PFS is aimed at evaluating the economics of an open pit mine at the site.
Kairos Resources’ Managing Director, Peter Turner said:“This substantial resource increase is a game-changer for Kairos on several levels."
“Mt York now has genuine scale at 1.1Moz in a tier-one location. And the results demonstrate the huge potential for further increases, with the mineralisation open in all directions and constrained only by drilling."
“Our resource optimisation work on the Main Trend outlines a single 3km-long pit constrained only by drilling at depth."
The company’s next steps include feeding structural mapping data into its geological models to help vector in on its next wave of drill targets and establishing an exploration camp at Mt York ahead of more drilling.
Kairos lays claim to over 2,000 square kilometres of gold rich ground in the Pilbara however in recent times been working up its proximal lithium assets.
The explorer recently bagged a suite of rock samples from pegmatites which ran up to 1.91 per cent lithium oxide and intriguingly were found a mere 4km from Pilbara Minerals’ revered Pilgangoora operation.
Given both commodities are projected to enjoy stable growth over the next few years, Kairos Minerals could find that membership to the 1-million-ounce gold club has its benefits.
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By Matt Birney
