Emerging gold developer, Wiluna Mining, is on course to deliver an updated mineral resource at its historic Wiluna project by September and a new reserves statement by the end of the year as it advances towards fulfilling its stage one expansion plans to become a 120,000-ounce-a-year producer in WA’s Goldfields region.
The Perth-based company has been churning out some solid high-grade hits from its resource development and infill drilling program at Wiluna as part of its stage one expansion strategy.
Stage one entails underground mining of an estimated 750,000 tonnes of sulphide ore per annum to produce two product streams, gold “dore” and gold in “concentrate”.
Recent sulphide resource drilling at the Wiluna South Area at East Lode South intersected impressive numbers including 6m going 8.66 grams per tonne gold from 298m and 8m at 8.35 g/t from 102m.
Meanwhile at the Calvert prospect within the Wiluna Central Area, best intercepts were 1.92m grading 10.05 g/t from 358.08m and 76.5m at 1.77 g/t from 380.5m including 1.65m at 7.35 g/t from 431.25m and 2.47m at 12.78 g/t from 448.53m.
Wiluna has completed a whopping 45,000m of drilling so far in 2020 at its operation – which is currently producing gold from remnant free milling ore purely to help fund the planned transition to the sulphide production phase next year.
Multiple intercepts continue to verify the high-grade sweet spots in the sulphide resource.
The company says that every 1 gram per tonne increase in the mined grade has the potential to translate into an additional 25,000ozpa of production in stage one, which is nothing to be sneezed at given a skyrocketing gold price of A$2,700 an ounce.
Wiluna Mining Executive Chairman, Milan Jerkovic said: “These ongoing results from drilling ‘under the headframe’ are continuing to deliver into our stage one sulphide strategy as we pursue shallow high-grade resource development targets. Our initial sulphide resource drilling program commenced at the Wiluna Mining Centre at Bulletin and Essex and has progressed to Calvert and the East Lode.”
“We have had exceptional drilling results from all these areas, and this has given us great confidence that Wiluna remains one of the largest undeveloped gold systems in Australia. We believe that from these results we will add meaningful ounces to our already significant mineral resource, which is currently 6.4 million ounces, and our reserves, which are currently 1.4 million ounces.”
The company has six drill rigs going gangbusters at the Wiluna Mining Centre now as it looks to significantly increase the geological confidence in the sulphide resource, saying it intends to continue drilling at this rate for the foreseeable future.
All eyes will be on the Wiluna resource update in September and on how Wiluna is tracking with its stage one production plan for the historic operation that has never reached its full potential.
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