Brightstar drill program widens gold hunt

Brightstar Resources has hit the ground running with its latest drilling program at its Cork Tree Well project, near Laverton in WA’s northern Goldfields, as it bids to expand its JORC-compliant resource.

The gold developer reports drilling is averaging more than 200m a day and eight holes have already been completed at the Delta 2 prospect.

Previous drilling has already uncovered a 12m intersection, going 3.47 grams per tonne and Brightstar has said more drilling is needed to establish the “size of the prize”.

The company’s ambition is to extend Cork Tree Well’s current JORC-compliant resource of 3.9 million tonnes of gold at 1.9 grams per tonne for 237,000 ounces.

In total, 10,000m of RC drilling is scheduled for the Delta prospect and Delta 2, to the north-east.

First in line is Delta 2. The 12-hole-RC program totalling 1790m aims to test the bedrock under an air core anomaly, with a strike length of more than 500m at more than 1 g/t in shallow historic drilling. The bedrock beneath the mineralisation has never been drill tested.

After Delta 2, the drill rig will shift to Delta for a 50-hole, 7350m program to investigate any opportunities for splay and parallel lodes identified in the previous program and extend the drilling along strike of the main deposit in the north.

Brightstar Resources Managing Director, William Hobba says: “We look forward to growing the current resource at Cork Tree Well main lode with this program as well as the discovery of new opportunities in the project area.”

Brightstar has three major projects — Cork Tree Well, Alpha, and Beta. All are in the Laverton area and together boast a JORC 2012-compliant mineral resource of 445,000 ounces.

Cork Tree Well’s two pits already have historic runs on the board: between 1987 and 1989, a combined total of 57,000oz of gold was processed from 740,000 tonnes at 2.4 g/t.

The company says it has a three-year plan to reopen the Brightstar processing plant, 15km south of Laverton and currently on care and maintenance, by expanding its resource through brownfields exploration.

Brightstar says it is the only company among its ASX-listed gold peers with installed processing infrastructure — sure to be a bonus if the gold developer eventually grows into a producer.

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