Ora Banda Mining has updated the mineral resource estimate for its historic Golden Eagle mine, located just 3.2km from its Davyhurst processing plant in WA’s Eastern Goldfields, approximately 120km north-west of Kalgoorlie.
The company said this week it has tabled a first pass underground resource estimate at Golden Eagle of 49,000 ounces of gold. The upgrade totals 393,000 tonnes at a higher grade of 3.9 g/t gold at a cut-off of 2.0 g/t to reflect the potential to mine this deposit by conventional underground mining.
The company said the new estimate also includes an indicated resource of 247 kt at a higher grade of 4.1 g/t for 33,000 ounces of contained gold. The new indicated and inferred resources are based on a gold price of A$2,400 per oz and have been derived by integrating drilling results received since the previous resource and include new underground face sampling data from the historic mine.
Ora Banda said the previous resource estimate for Golden Eagle was based on lower grades, with a lower grade cut-off and an unconstrained open pit model. It now appears to be targeting an underground operation at the historic mine site that last saw activity between August 2017 and August 2018 when production was suspended.
Back then, over 2km of underground development took place, including drives and production stopes, for a collective ore recovery of 70,150 tonnes at a grade of 2.9 g/t for 6,640 contained oz of gold. Management said that mineralisation is open down plunge on both the hangingwall and footwall zones, with assays from 3,000m of extensional drilling now eagerly awaited.
Ora Banda now has its technical team working on a detailed mine design and production re-start plans for Golden Eagle. With all environmental permitting already in place, it should only be a matter of time before the Golden Eagle mine can kick off new gold production.
Ora Banda Mining already boasts over 1.84 million ounces of gold in its resource armoury at Davyhurst. With only an initial resource for Golden Eagle in place and another for the Callion deposit due in the coming months, that figure does not look like remaining static anytime soon. Both are set to impact the final number as the company hurtles headlong towards production.
When combined with Its Mount Ida project resource, Oro Banda is now moving into rarefied air as it nudges the 2-million-ounce gold resource benchmark from a total measured, indicated and inferred mineral resource of 23.4 Mt at 2.6 g/t for 1.98 million ounces gold.
Ora Banda Mining Managing Director, David Quinlivan said: “Defining this resource is an important step towards declaring a reserve position that leverages off the existing and significant capital investment of the recent past. We are now well positioned to bring this underground mine back into production as an integral part of our operational restart plan.”
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By Matt Birney
