EMERGING gold explorer Dacian Gold is one step closer to defining economic ore reserves at its flagship Mt Morgans project after unveiling new high-grade drill results mid-March.
A broad-spaced diamond drilling program has been testing for extensions at the south end of the Westralia gold deposit – part of the company’s wholly owned Mt Morgans gold project – 40km west of Laverton in the Goldfields region of WA.
The drilling confirmed the existence of high-grade gold 450m below the existing resource boundary at Westralia, with the mineralisation remaining open at depth. Significant intersections included 17.08m grading 7.5 grams per tonne gold from 218.7m, and 0.63m grading 32.7g/t gold from 375.6m.
“These very broad-spaced diamond drill intersections confirm our view that Westralia is not only a very large mineralised position, but that it also has the potential to host substantial high-grade shoots close to existing underground development,” Dacian managing director Paul Payne said.
“We have commenced planning selected infill holes to define the shoot extent.
“This will be done in parallel with further first-pass testing of the target horizon to the north of our initial drilling.” Planning for selected infill drilling around the recent high-grade intersections has started, with drilling to
resume in April.
If results from the infill program confirm the continuity of mineralisation, mineral resource upgrade studies will commence later in 2013.
In addition to the planned infill drilling, Dacian has planned first-pass broad-spaced diamond drilling below the central part of the Westralia deposit in April or May.
The company has aimed for the definition of at least 500,000oz of ore reserves at Mt Morgans and would consider that “reasonably likely” to provide sufficient returns, to justify construction of an ore-processing facility at the project.
In November last year, the Perth-based company raised $20 million in its initial public offering to explore Mt Morgans, which hosts a high-grade JORC resource of 842,000oz at an average grade of 3.1g/t gold; including reserves of 136,000oz at an average grade of 6.2g/t gold.
