Emerging gold producer Brightstar Resources (ASX: BTR) has delivered a series of significant gold hits from its maiden drilling campaign at the Lord Nelson deposit, located within the company’s 1.5 million ounce Sandstone gold project in Western Australia.
The 3,700 metre drilling campaign was designed to target depth extensions and better define the existing 291,000 ounce resource at Lord Nelson, which also includes a 263,000 ounce optimised pit shell when using a gold price of A$2,500 per ounce.
Continuity and extension of gold mineralisation
Management noted that the final results from this program have now confirmed continuity of high-grade mineralisation within the optimised pit shell, as well as extensions to the mineralisation at depth. It believes these outcome bode well for potential upgrades of the mineral resource estimate at the project.
Amongst others, significant intercepts from the drilling include a 40m hit grading 1.89 grams per tonne gold from 178m depth, which also contains a 15m interval at 3.07 g/t gold. Other results include 22m at 2.38 g/t gold from 228m below surface and 22m at 2.05 g/t gold from 212m.
Elsewhere, a separate hole returned two mineralised zones of 4m at 3.11 g/t gold from 148m and 8m at 5.06 g/t gold from 170m, including a richer 1m interval grading 17.89 g/t gold.
Brightstar Resources managing director, Alex Rovira, commented:
“The results from our first drill program at the Lord Nelson deposit within our Sandstone Gold Project are significant, highlighting the continuity of the high-grade mineralisation and the robustness of the current mineral resource. Drilling is ongoing with the RC rig now at the Vanguard Camp, infilling key areas for future resource upgrades and targeting extensions to the high-grade Vanguard North deposit.”
Aggressive drilling campaign
Brightstar has put into action an aggressive drilling campaign aimed at upgrading and extending Sandstone’s existing mineral resource base which is made up of multiple gold deposits.
Overall, the company plans a total of 80,000m of drilling at the project this year.
The drill rig has now relocated to the nearby Vanguard Camp where Brighstar seeks to infill key areas of the high-grade Vanguard North gold deposit and test its extensions along strike and down plunge.
Exploration upside
In addition to the existing deposits, Sandstone also boasts significant gold mineralisation intercepted in previous drilling along a prospective strike length known as the Lord’s Corridor, which stretches for more than 3km.
Here, multiple past intercepts are yet to be followed up with the drill rig with management prioritising these targets for further exploration.
Consolidation of tenure at Sandstone
Brightstar acquired its Sandstone tenure in August last year after entering a scheme implementation deed with previous owner Alto Metals, and by agreeing to purchase the gold minerals rights at the Montague project in a separate transaction.
This consolidation of the Sandstone gold district added a new hub to the group’s armoury by building on its existing gold tenure at Laverton and Menzies in Western Australia.
In turn, Brightstar now boasts a total resource base of about three million ounces of gold across these three hubs.
Emerging gold producer
The company already operates the underground Second Fortune gold mine near Laverton, and in March last year poured first gold at its Selkirk mining joint venture at Menzies.
Most recently, Brightstar received all key approvals to commence underground mining operations at its Fish gold deposit at Laverton, with first ore expected to be mined in the coming months.