BMG completes 1km of drilling at WA gold project with assays pending

BMG Resources has bored three diamond holes at its Abercromby project at Wiluna, in the West Australian Goldfields region, before a well-earned Christmas break.

The company began drilling 19 days ago and has booked 1076m drilled so far in a phase one program at the Capital deposit to expand and upgrade Capital’s maiden 518,000-ounce gold resource.

Only a small part of the overall 6km-long mineralised structure has been tested to date and the company sees potential in both directions along strike and at depth.   

BMG also sees potential for resource conversion within thinly tested areas through infill drilling that would close up the drill patterns to a greater drillhole density and improve its confidence in mineralisation continuity.   

The three diamond core holes were all drilled on the same -65 degree inclination to the west and south-west from 181.9m and 450m deep, into the southern third of the Capital deposit. The deposit sits in the northern extremity of BMG’s northern tenement.

The company will kick off drilling again in the New Year with a second phase of diamond and reverse circulation drilling to expand and upgrade its maiden resource of 518,000 ounces of gold at 1.45 grams per tonne (g/t) gold – which includes high-grade zones up to 5.94g/t gold. 

BMG’s Abercromby project sits on two granted mining leases, within an established mining region with access to road and power infrastructure. It is also close to several producing gold mines.

The new drilling campaign marks a key step in BMG’s strategy to progress the scale and commercial feasibility of the Abercromby gold project and allows the company to play to its project’s assets and nearology.

BMG’s non-executive chairman John Prineas said: “The new drill campaign is aiming to build on the very strong drill results delivered at Abercromby to date which have underpinned the maiden gold resource that commences near surface and remains open at depth and along strike. The first phase of our new drilling campaign at Abercromby proceeded efficiently and we look forward to continuing in the new year with more results that could expand the Abercromby resource.”

Further drilling is planned for early next year to test regional targets south along strike from the Capital deposit. 

Previous air core drilling at the Capital South, Archer and Barrack prospects has confirmed the presence of a big, high-grade gold system. Notably for BMG, the three prospects lie along a 1km strike corridor of prospective stratigraphy extending south from the Capital deposit.

The company believes the potential exists for new discoveries along the trend that could be similar to the Capital deposit.

Well-regarded DDH1 Drilling is providing drilling services for the latest Abercromby campaign, which is running 24/7 using a double shift. 

The first batch of drill core from the three holes is being sent to Kalgoorlie for logging, cutting and laboratory submission, with results anticipated in February.

The three holes drilled so far feature strong alteration and quartz veining intersected in the target zones, which the company says is typical of the high-grade Abercromby style of gold mineralisation. Laboratory assays will be the proof of the pudding here. 

Hopes are high for the latest holes, given the previous holes drilled in the same Capital South zone gave up some good gold runs, including 77m at 2.66g/t gold from 116m, 26m assaying 6.07g/t gold from 192m and 10m running 11.71g/t gold from 295m. Another 30m intercept yielded an impressive 10.01g/t gold from 164m. 

In other work, BMG says favourable metallurgical characteristics of the Abercromby ore were confirmed by detailed metallurgical testwork undertaken by Extreme Metallurgy and reviewed by GR Engineering Services.  

The testwork provides the company with confidence that the Abercromby gold mineralisation is free milling and amenable to traditional carbon-in-leach processing – which would shore-up the economics of the project. The testwork also demonstrated high gold recoveries were achievable ranging between 93 per cent and 95 per cent.

Is your ASX-listed company doing something interesting? Contact: matt.birney@businessnews.com.au