Aspiring gold producer Calidus Resources has commenced its 2018 resource definition program at its flagship Warrawoona gold project, 25km south of Marble Bar in the East Pilbara region of W.A.
Calidus will plough 30,000 metres of RC and diamond drilling into the project in coming months in a bid to significantly expand the current, quite shallow mineral resource base of 10.5 million tonnes grading 2.11g/t gold for 712,000 ounces.
Calidus are not mucking about with this project now that they clearly have something of substance at Warrawoona, with the immediately goal being to hit the magical million ounce resource marker as soon as possible.
The sizeable drilling program will focus on the major Klondyke prospect, particularly in shallow strike extensions of the identified ore system.
The program is aiming to test the company’s interpretation of high-grade ore shoot geometries down-plunge.
Drilling will also attempt to verify new identified exploration targets that are adjacent to existing gold resources at the Klondyke and Copenhagen prospects.
Reconnaissance exploratory drilling will be undertaken along 4km of the St George’s shear zone that is 150m north and structurally similar to the main Klondyke shear zone that contains over 90% of the defined ounces at Warrawoona currently.
Calidus Resources Managing Director Dave Reeves said: “The main focus of our 2018 drilling programme is to grow the resource inventory to in excess of one million ounces. This would allow the company to push the green light on commencement of a formal pre‐feasibility study.”
“Given the outstanding success of our maiden drilling in 2017, we are confident that this objective is readily achievable.”
“In addition to the growth of along strike ounces at Klondyke, we will shortly undertake an initial reconnaissance drill programme on the St George’s Shear that lies 150m to the north of Klondyke, is parallel to Klondyke and shares very similar geology to Klondyke.”
Management also said that it was awaiting assay results from recent exploratory drilling completed at the Klondyke Queen and Coronation prospects.
The company recently completed a regional soil geochemistry sampling program with results expected in about 4 weeks.
Calidus also announced that two large exploration licences covering the Mt Roe basalt rock sequence had been granted and they will be assessed for their “blue sky” potential given occurrences of gold-in-conglomerate deposits at that prospect.
A number of different companies including Canada’s Novo Resources, ASX-listed De Grey Mining and DGO Gold are currently seeking these ancient gold deposits in conglomerate sequences in the Pilbara.
These style of ore body are akin to the rich Witwatersrand Basin conglomerate gold deposits found in South Africa and are an enticing target for West Australian explorers.
This year’s drilling program at Warrawoona will also include a collection of diamond drill core for geotechnical and metallurgical test work, ahead of a PFS set down for late 2018, post the anticipated resource upgrade.
Exciting times lay ahead for this cashed-up junior, as it pulls out all stops on the road to production.
By Matt Birney
