Horizon Minerals has hit the ground hard, kicking off a 30,000-metre reverse circulation and diamond drilling blitz at its high-grade Burbanks gold project near Coolgardie.
The company is eyeing a revival of the site’s historic mine to fast-track standalone gold production by next year.
The Burbanks project sits 9 kilometres south of the famed WA mining town and boasts a glittering history. Underground mining from 1885 to 1961 churned out 324,000 ounces at a jaw-dropping average grade of 22.7 grams per tonne (g/t).
Wind the clock forward and Horizon aims to breathe new life into the storied mine, armed with a current 6.1-million-tonne JORC resource grading 2.4g/t for 466,000 ounces of gold - and counting.
The new two-phase drilling campaign is central to Horizon’s broader game plan of firing up its mothballed Black Swan plant so the company can start funnelling in a steady stream of high-grade ore from the end of 2026.
Phase one will punch out 45 holes for 15,500m, targeting infill zones between the company’s Main Lode, Burbanks North and Birthday Gift deposits. Horizon aims to upgrade its inferred resources to the more reliable indicated category, paving the way for ore reserve conversions and detailed mine planning.
The second phase will push the rigs further out, chasing down-dip and along-strike extensions of the high-grade lodes from the old pits, while also probing parallel mineralised structures.
Horizon says if the drill program can join the dots and prove up a continuation of mineralisation at depth and along strike, it would constitute a discovery that could open up a whole new chapter for the project.
One of the big drivers behind the push into new ground is stellar results from previous deep drilling programs. Standout hits included 0.3m grading 45.4g/t gold from 428m, 7m at 5.51g/t from 130m and 1.55m at 20.43g/t from 301m.
These high-grade hits sit well below the old workings, which only reached 140m at the Birthday Gift and 250m at Main Lode deposits when they were in operation.
Horizon is also charging ahead with a pre-feasibility study, which should be completed by year’s end, to revamp its newly acquired Black Swan plant.
The processing facility is central to the company’s five-year life-of-mine plan as it looks to transform Burbanks into a fully standalone gold operation.
To help fund the study and the new drill program, the company recently completed a jumbo $30 million capital raising at 4.3 cents a share.
Horizon Minerals managing director and chief executive officer Grant Haywood said: “Past drilling at Burbanks has demonstrated the growth potential of this high-grade mineralised system both along strike and at depth. Our first phase of drilling will focus on transitioning more of the existing resource into the higher confidence JORC indicated category. The second phase will then seek to deliver on the extensional potential seen in earlier drilling.”
The company acquired Burbanks through last year’s merger with Greenstone Resources. The deal handed Horizon a tasty 5km stretch of strike along the Burbanks Shear, which has been the most prolific gold-producing structure in the entire Coolgardie goldfield.
The geology at Burbanks is mostly steep diorite rock bodies inside a unique style of basalt called the Burbanks Formation. The diorite has a high iron-to-magnesium ratio, which turns it into a chemical trap for gold-rich fluids.
The difference in how the basalt and diorite respond to pressure has also helped guide where the gold ends up, with most high-grade lodes found either inside the diorite or right where it meets the basalt.
Meanwhile, Horizon has been busying itself with production from its two cash-generating gold mining operations at Boorara and Phillips Find.
Operations are being managed as joint ventures with Kalgoorlie-based mining contractor BML Ventures under two separate toll treating arrangements. Ore from Philips Find is being processed at FMR Investments’ Greenfields Mill, while Boorara’s dirt is being shovelled through Norton Gold Fields’ Paddington mill.
The first 37,000t of ore from Phillips Find and 50,604t from Boorara led to the company banking a wad of cash in March.
The joint venture shared in $7.9 million received from the processed Phillips Find parcel, while the Boorara ore generated $4.95 million in revenue before treatment costs.
A second batch of 18,676t of ore from Phillips Find has now been processed, generating a 50 per cent share of a healthy $5.8 million in revenue for Horizon from 1132 produced gold ounces.
Boorara has also continued to deliver the goods with revenues of $12.8 million for the joint venture so far in the June quarter.
With a bulging bank balance, drills now spinning and first assay results due in the September quarter, Horizon’s momentum is clearly building. And with multiple lodes still open at depth and along strike, Burbanks could end up being the gift that keeps on giving.
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By James Pearson
