Brightstar hits new high-grade gold lode in WA

Brightstar Resources’ recent 12-hole RC drilling program has identified a new mineralised lode at the company’s Cork Tree Well gold project 30km north of Laverton in WA. The drilling was performed at the project’s Delta 2 prospect and returned a series of high-grade hits including 2m going 6.05 grams per tonne gold from 29m, 1m running 5.31 g/t from 102m and 2m grading 2.42 g/t from 94m.

The holes were designed to test for an east dipping mineralised structure striking north to south based on knowledge gained from exploring the project’s premier namesake deposit and reviewing historical air core data.

The anomalous intersections confirmed bedrock mineralisation over 300m along strike, however further drilling is required to determine the system’s scale as the lode has not yet been effectively closed off in any direction. Whilst it is still early days, the explorer says its widely spaced gold intercepts bode well for a potential discovery of a significant mineralised system at the prospect. In addition, Brightstar believes the bedrock mineralisation above 1 g/t may indicate potential for the system to host more than just shallow mineralisation.

Although the company concedes the current intersections may appear relatively thin, it finds them highly encouraging as the latest haul lies just 2.5km from Brightstar’s newly upgraded gold resource estimate of 5.61 million tonnes of ore grading 1.4 g/t for 252,000 ounces.

Brightstar Resources Managing Director, Bill Hobba said: “The Company has confirmed the potential for Delta 2 to host bedrock mineralisation. This discovery strengthens Brightstar’s belief in the potential for the Cork Tree Well project area to produce multiple deposits.”

Whilst Cork Tree Well is the furthest deposit from the company’s 485,000 tonne per annum processing plant, it is the largest of three that make up Brightstar’s total gold inventory of 460,000 ounces.

Brightstar says it is working on a three-year strategy to return its mothballed plant to production along with expanding its gold inventory through brownfields exploration.

Now does not appear to be a bad time to be stumbling across extra gold either as the price of the precious yellow metal appears to have reclaimed even more territory. Today on the primary futures and options market for trading metals, The Commodity Exchange, or ‘COMEX’, the most actively traded gold futures contract for December delivery climbed back to US$1711 per ounce after bottoming out on a yearly low of US$1622 last week.

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