ASX-listed aspiring gold developer Bardoc Gold’s hopes of increasing the forecast mine life of its namesake multi-deposit gold project near Kalgoorlie in WA have been buoyed by recent encouraging extensional and infill drilling results. Best numbers from the latest diamond drill hits from gold-bearing lodes at the key Zoroastrian deposit area are 4.5 metres grading a solid 3.53 grams per tonne gold from 102m, 1m weighing in at 11.7 g/t from 466m and 6m at 2.44 g/t from 460m.
As it eyes a final investment decision on the proposed $232.4 million development of the Bardoc gold mine by the end of this year, the Perth-based company also returned an intersection from resource definition drilling at Zoroastrian that exceeded expectations.
The intersection, which pierced the Zoroastrian South lode, tipped the scales at 5.2m going 4.97 g/t gold from 379m including 1.69m at 14.1 g/t from 381.62m. Bardoc says the grades registered were higher than reflected in the existing resource model.
The company says the upshot of the drilling so far has been to extend the known gold mineralisation at Zoroastrian more than 150m down plunge from the current mineral resource outer limits.
Bardoc Gold Chief Executive Officer Rob Ryan said: “These results support our view that there is immense potential to grow the inventory and mine life at Zoroastrian through extensions to the known mineralisation at depth and in new areas.”
“The diamond drilling program we commenced in August has already confirmed the presence of mineralisation 150m below the current resource envelope, providing strong evidence for what we have long suspected – that the multi-lode system at Zoroastrian extends at depth.”
Zoroastrian’s underground ore reserves currently stand at 839,000 tonnes averaging a respectable grade of 3.6 g/t for 98,000 ounces of contained gold.
The reserves occur within an overall underground and open-pittable indicated and inferred mineral resource for Zoroastrian of 7.5 million tonnes at 2.2 g/t for 530,000 ounces of contained gold.
Bardoc says drilling is continuing at Zoroastrian and it intends using the assay data to generate an updated resource model.
Last week the company unveiled a cash flow optimisation study that showed a ramp-up in early cash flows and gold production by bringing forward the mining of Aphrodite, another of the Bardoc project’s key deposits.
The revised mine plan also incorporates relocating the processing plant to alongside Aphrodite.
According to the optimisation study, Bardoc will pump out about 150,000 ounces of gold per annum by year three courtesy of about 80,000 additional ounces mined compared to the output originally envisaged in an earlier definitive feasibility study across the first five years.
Life of mine free cash flows for the project total about $795 million or an average of $79.5 million a year assuming a gold price of $2,450 per ounce, with average all-in sustaining costs of production estimated at $1,301 an ounce.
Aphrodite comes gift wrapped with open-pittable ore reserves of 3.96 million tonnes at 1.8 g/t for 229,000 ounces of gold and underground reserves of 3.13 million tonnes at 3.4 g/t for 344,000 ounces of gold for a combined 573,000 ounces.
The study puts Bardoc’s anticipated initial life of mine at 10 years.
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By Matt Birney
