Sulphide Strategy Is Right On Target At Wiluna
Blackham Resources Limited (ASX: BLK) has obtained what it describes as “exceptional” high-grade results from resource development drilling at the Wiluna Mining Centre in Western Australia.
Executive Chairman, Milan Jerkovic, said the drilling results are on target with Blackham’s strategy to significantly increase the confidence in the sulphide Mineral Resources from Inferred to Indicated category at Wiluna.
“These outstanding results are delivering on our Stage 1 Sulphide strategy as we initially target shallow high-grade sulphides ‘under the headframe’,” Mr Jerkovic said.
“Our plan to convert the existing large Inferred sulphide resources at Wiluna into Indicated resources is gathering significant momentum and confidence with every new hole.
“These results will support further resource and reserve updates and mine planning work scheduled over the coming months.
“The current underground sulphide resource at Wiluna averages 4.8 g/t but historically the average grade mined was between 7 to 8g/t, and the Bulletin shoot alone produced 900,000oz @ 8 g/t.
“We’re targeting high-grade shoot discoveries because every one g/t increase in the grade in the sulphides, could result in an additional 25kozpa of production in Stage 1 and 50kozpa under our Stage 2 scenario, so grade is obviously extremely important to project economics.”
Blackham’s Wiluna strategy is to drill out high-grade Inferred Mineral Resources to enhance the first years of our Stage 1 Sulphide mine plan. Production aims to ramp up from September 2021 to 100-120,000ozpa, with a subsequent Stage 2 expansion envisaged to increase to +200,000ozpa.
These latest results are expected to improve the grade and geological confidence of current Mineral Resources and ultimate conversion to Reserves at Essex, where the original expectation was 38koz @ 4.6g/t. Results to date include: 6m @ 53.73g/tfrom 109m, incl. 1m @ 283g/t 4m @ 12.08g/tfrom 107m, incl. 2m @ 21.30g/t 2m @ 10.92g/tfrom 133m and 2m @ 5.43g/tfrom 139m, 4m @ 9.73g/t from 128m, 8m @ 11.80g/t from 144m, incl. 4m @ 22.10g/t.
The company is on track to complete the initial drilling programme by the end of next month, which is designed to de-risk our indicative gold production guidance with the objective of converting the Inferred Mineral Resource to Indicated Mineral Resources and to also discover additional high-grade ore shoots to extend the sulphide mine life.
A similarly aggressive programme will continue in FY 2021 with the objective to maintain 4 years of Reserves in front of production through progressive infill drilling and conversion of our very large Mineral Resource base.
Enhanced Mineral Resources and conversion to Reserves underpin the company’s 24-month, five-point strategy to:
1. Strengthen the balance sheet2. Increase operational cash flow3. Transition to include gold concentrate production4. Expand production, and5. Undertake exploration and feasibility studies to fully develop a more than 200kozpa, long life gold operation. Results are also expected in the coming weeks from ongoing drilling at the high-grade Golden Age mine, with the aim to extend free-milling Reserves for additional cashflow during the transition to sulphides production in September 2021.
