MIDDLE Island Resources starts 2020 with the announcement of a major drilling campaign at its Sandstone gold project in central WA.
A wholly-owned subsidiary situated 400km NW of Kalgoorlie, Sandstone was acquired by Middle Island in 2016, which had a major interest in its 600ktpa gold processing plant.
Originally opened in 1890, the site was acquired by Troy Resources in 1990, which worked the 4.4t open pit of ore grad 3.6g/t until 2010, producing 508,000oz of gold.
With near record Australian gold prices, the company has made the decision to target 17 identified prospects and deposits, mainly located on existing permitted tenure and all within 5km of the processing plant.
The campaign comprises a sequential series of aircore (AC), reverse circulation (RC) and diamond drilling programs starting with around 2300m of AC drilling and anticipated to take one to two weeks.
This will be followed by about 1300m of RC drilling to confirm and quantify extensions to existing open pit targets and deposits and has been allocated three to four weeks, making way for a second RC program.
Provision has been made for about 800m of HQ3 diamond coring.
The campaign will also comprise AC and RC drilling at the Davis prospect, the Southern Zone prospect and the Two Mile Hill deposit, where previous RC drilling has identified significant gold intercepts.
Middle Island plans to complete the entire proposed 17,400m drilling campaign by the end of the March quarter 2020, with a view to recommencing the updated PFS in the June quarter.
Middle Island managing director Rick Yeates said that the company’s $2.8m cash provided the looked-for opportunity to deploy drilling across a multitude of targets that have remained untested (or poorly tested) due to previous financial constraints.
“Though results from initial AC drilling are unlikely to generate significant excitement, it is reasonable to anticipate more significant results from the subsequent phase 1 RC drilling campaign,” he said.