ASX-listed Kingwest Resources has hit paydirt again at its flagship Menzies gold project about 130km north of Kalgoorlie as the company seeks to shore up confidence in the resource. The results, the best of which include 4m at 11.04 g/t gold from 47m and 3m at 12.28 g/t from 79m also hint that an upgrade to its current mineral resource estimate may soon be on the cards.
The Menzies project area covers a mineralised corridor along the Menzies shear zone over a strike length of about 15km and takes in all the former high-grade gold deposits that have been historically mined.
The Perth-based company is peppering its ‘string of pearls’ of Menzies gold mineralised systems, from Selkirk and First Hit in the north, to Lady Shenton, Lady Harriet and Yunndaga in the south, with up to 100 RC drill holes for a total of 10,000m.
Whilst the drill rods will attempt to hit all of the gold deposits along strike, the latest results were all bagged within the First Hit and Lady Shenton gold systems and included 5m at 6.22 g/t gold from 56m, 2m at 12.01 g/t gold from 91m, 8m at 3.43 g/t gold from 73m and 6m at 3.78 g/t gold from 68m.
Kingwest said a total of 42 holes have been drilled so far and were designed at a close spacing in an attempt to shore up confidence of the existing global resource inventory, with a view to converting most of the inferred category to indicated and or measured resources.
Other solid RC drill hits recorded to date include 4m at 3.3 g/t gold from 51m, 4m at 3.18 g/t from 60m, 5m at 3.11 g/t gold from 66m and 4m at 3.39 g/t from 95m.
Only a year after picking up the project, the company has almost doubled the near-surface resource at Menzies to around 4.8 million tonnes going a respectable 2.08 grams per tonne for a tad under 320,000 ounces of contained gold.
Historical mining at Menzies produced over 800,000 ounces of gold with most of it won from less than 200m below surface, but mineralisation is proven to extend to a depth of at least 600m below surface, according to the company.
Whilst the Ed Turner-led Kingwest is roughly halfway through its resource definition drilling campaign at Menzies, the company said its early results had exceeded expectations, especially as some of the new intercepts are outside the envelope of the current mineral resource estimate.
If Kingwest can continue its run of success at Menzies, a resource upgrade should be well and truly on the cards in the not-too-distant future.
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By Matt Birney
