Gold hopeful, Kingwest Resources has turned in the first assays from its inaugural aircore drilling campaign at the Goongarrie gold project and they have not disappointed. The initial report card reads well with one of the best hits returning a stellar 38m at 3.1 g/t gold from 62m, including 6m at 17.2 g/t from 94m downhole. The project sits almost on the main highway between Kalgoorlie and Menzies.
The new gold find at Goongarrie comes on the back of a successful year of exploration for Kingwest just up the road at its Menzies gold project and add another potentially significant dimension to the ASX-listed company.
Kingwest Resources Chief Executive Officer, Ed Turner said: “We are very excited with these results from our first pass drilling at Goongarrie which prove that our expectations were well founded and auger well for future success. To intersect such high-grade results in our first drill program is very encouraging and justify Kingwest devoting additional drilling to the GGP in 2021.”
“In addition, some of our best targets under the lakes remain to be drill tested and we look forward to doing this in the next few months.”
“I believe we have a very good chance of making a major discovery within the GGP….”
A second solid hit from the initial batch of 28 Goongarrie Air core drill holes assayed up at 4m going 2.5 g/t gold from 74m, within 8m at 1.3 g/t from 74m downhole. Kingwest says these two successful hits lie immediately along strike from Ardea Resources’ 2020-vintage Aphrodite North gold discovery.
Notable intersections from a seven-hole program at Aphrodite North, announced by Ardea last August, were 6m going 3.6 grams per tonne gold from 44m including 2m at 9.99 g/t and 8m at 4.94 g/t from 172m including 4m at 9.42 g/t.
Kingwest joins a budding small-cap group of gold hopefuls scouring Government archives, re-visiting historical workings, or looking under transported surface cover to find the next big thing and by any measure the company has experienced some immediate success in peeling back the layers of the salty surface dirt at Goongarrie.
Kingwest ploughed 108 holes into the profile of the regolith structure at a 60-degree angle to penetrate the top of the fresh rock at the project. An additional 273 relatively shallow geochemical holes were drilled to test the very shallow dirt sitting just below the transported surface cover.
Whilst many assay results are still pending, the most northerly drill holes on the Kingwest ground sit less than 1km south of the historic Goongarrie Lady mine along the underexplored, alluvium-covered Victorious Basalt/Black Flag beds contact.
According to the company, this geological structure is a part of the famous Bardoc Tectonic Zone, or “BTZ” that links Kalgoorlie’s gold riches with Kingwest’s Menzies deposit. The company said the same geological contact hosts Bardoc Gold’s 1.7-million-ounce Aphrodite gold deposit, just 7km south of Kingwest’s leases.
Kingwest is planning more holes across the Goongarrie prospect area before the middle of this year as it looks to dip its toes well into the old salt-lake when the company gets its hands on a customised, track-mounted aircore rig.
Expect a regular bevy of news flow out of this small capped ASX-listed company for the foreseeable future as the existing assays in the lab get tabled and the rods start to turn again.
Is your ASX-listed company doing something interesting? Contact: matt.birney@businessnews.com.au
By Matt Birney
