ASX-listed Horizon Minerals has its eyes on a maiden resource for its Pinner prospect near Kalgoorlie in Western Australia after revealing positive results from an infill drilling program at its Greater Boorara-Cannon gold project.
The company completed 26 holes of both air-core (AC) and reverse-circulation (RC) drilling through 1259m across its Pinder and Monument prospects to support its assessment of small-scale open-cut mining.
The third-pass campaign targeted shallow mineralisation to also increase drill density and to improve resource confidence for the two targets that sit just 1km south-west of Horizon’s fully-funded Cannon underground project, where it is planning first gold production as soon as next year.
Assay highlights from the latest drill campaign include a 2m hit grading 3.03 grams per tonne gold from 36m, with a further 4m going 0.55g/t gold from 41m in the same hole. Additional results show 2m reading 2.12g/t gold from 10m, 1m at 1.11g/t from 15m and 1m going 0.74g/t from 21m all in the same drill hole.
Wider assay results include a 9m hit grading 1.36g/t gold from 27m, while a second hole recorded 6m at 1.23g/t from 28m.
Just last month, the company revealed a JORC-compliant resource for Monument at 395,000 tonnes going 1.97g/t gold for 25,000 ounces at a 0.8g/t cut-off grade. However, management is already lining up an upgrade for the prospect following positive results.
Horizon Minerals chief executive officer Grant Haywood said: “Once the resource models are completed, we’ll undertake optimisation and mine design studies to continue development of this future production hub in the Greater Boorara-Cannon area. The mining infrastructure we’re installing at Cannon means shallow, oxide open pit mines can generate modest but high-margin cashflow to support our ongoing development and exploration activities.”
The company believes both Pinner and Monument have the potential to present as bolt-on open-pit opportunities for the Cannon underground gold project.
Prior to Horizon snapping up Cannon, the deposit had been mined as an open pit up until 2017, producing 55,143 ounces of gold at a grade of 2.98g/t. The company has a significant 1100-square-kilometre tenement position centred around the WA Goldfields hub of Kalgoorlie.
The Cannon mine is fully-permitted, while final mining contract and joint venture negotiations are in progress. Horizon has agreed to a toll-milling allocation at the 1-million-tonne per annum Greenfields Mill, 3km east of Coolgardie.
A prefeasibility study into the development of an underground operation at Cannon, tabled in March last year, demonstrated positive economic results under a contract mining and toll-milling model. The study found the operation could generate a net free cash flow of $10.1 million in a 16-month mine life at an Australian gold price of $2600 per ounce, while requiring a capital investment of just $4.3 million.
Today’s gold price in Australia is hovering close to $3000 an ounce.
Just yesterday, Horizon moved to monetise its non-core assets after entering into a binding option and sale deed with Dundas Minerals for the former’s Baden Powell/Scotia and Windanya gold projects north of Cannon.
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By Michael Philipps
