WA Gold developer Brightstar Resources has completed its latest drilling programs as it presses on with the company’s ambitions of boosting the resource at its Laverton Goldfields' project and getting its processing plant out of mothballs. RC drilling programs were conducted at Brightstar’s Cork Tree Well and Alpha projects and an air-core program at its Queen of Hearts South prospect, south of the plant.
In total, three RC programs were undertaken at Brightstar’s Cork Tree Well and its Alpha projects, about 940km north-east of Perth. In addition, a short air-core program was carried out at its Queen of Hearts South prospect, to the south of the plant.
Brightstar has a tenement package with a mineral resource totalling 7.1 million tonnes at 1.9 grams per tonne for 445,000 ounces gold across the Cork Tree Well, Alpha and Beta projects.
All tenements are in the highly prospective north Laverton greenstone belt. The company regards Cork Tree Well as highly prospective and aims to boost its current JORC Resource of 3.9mt at 1.9g/t for 237,000oz gold.
Those deposits are within 70km of the Brightstar Plant, which is on care and maintenance, with a capacity to process 485,000 tonnes a year. The plant is adjacent to Brightstar’s Beta project and includes camp for 60. Consultants have confirmed a low-cost refurbishment and upgrade to 650,000 tonnes processing capacity is feasible.
Brightstar’s most recent drilling campaign included 44 holes completed for about 6500m at Cork Tree Well deposit and Delta 2 prospects, part of the Cork Tree Well project.
The Delta 2 drilling was the first bedrock drilling in this part of Brightstar’s tenure, with only historic air-core drilling conducted previously. Its 12 holes for 1782m were designed to follow up an anomaly that intersected mineralisation of more than 1g/t gold over a 500m strike.
However, Cork Tree Well deposit received the lion’s share of attention, and for good reason. Previous drilling has delivered an outstanding result of 12m intersection grading 3.47g/t gold and 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.
In Brightstar’s latest campaign, 32 holes for 4758m were drilled to test the poorly resolved sections of the geological model between the northern end of the open pits and the parallel lodes of gold anomalism.
Because sand and swelling clays had the potential to affect sample quality on two holes, drilling of those holes finished early and Brightstar seized the opportunity that curtailment provided.
It tested the western end of the Alpha trend with a dozen shallow RC holes for 1278m over a previously identified anomaly. The company says the bedrock underneath this mineralisation has never been drill-tested.
Alpha West is part of the Alpha project, which has a JORC 2012-compliant resource of 1.4mt gold at 2.3g/t for 106,000oz gold.
Company management says it is happy with progress in Laverton as it builds its case for reopening the Brightstar processing plant, and it complimented the work of drilling contractor, Blue Spec Drilling.
“They’re done an excellent job and delivered exceptional sample integrity throughout the program at a consistently high penetration rate,” said Brightstar Managing Director, Bill Hobba.
The Queen of Hearts South prospect is one of several in the Brightstar South region that the company plans to examine with about 2000m of air-core drilling.
Other prospects include the Rowena, Jubilee and Sailor Prince – where records show 4924 ounces of gold were mined up to the 1930s.
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By Matt Birney
