Spectrum Metals has started spinning the drill bit at its new Penny West project in the Murchison mining district, one of the highest-grade open pit gold mines ever worked in Western Australia.
Most of the 4500 metre maiden drill campaign is aimed at further defining and extending the mineralised envelope below the Penny West open pit.
Management said that the due diligence process had identified zones under the pit where high‐grade mineralisation intersected in historical holes was not closed off.
Those gaps and the down‐plunge extent beyond the current mineralised envelope are the major focus areas of the drilling.
The tighter drill spacing in the high‐grade zones should increase the company’s confidence in its interpretation and feed into an updated JORC resource estimate for the project.
Drilling will also test the potential off‐set position of the Penny West lode to the north of the open pit and the projected down plunge mineralisation at the Magenta prospect about 2km to the north, that was highlighted by the recent auger geochemistry program.
Final assay results from the drilling program are expected during April.
Spectrum Managing Director Paul Adams said: “The program is aimed at filling in the “blanks” in and around the existing high‐grade mineralised envelope and to extend our knowledge of the mineralising system at Penny West, at depth below the open pit.”
“The additional targets north of the historic Penny West open pit drilled in this program could potentially open up new areas of focus for the company and several other targets are still to be tested in future drilling programs.”
The Penny West gold project is centred 30km from the mothballed Youanmi operation in the Murchison mining district of WA and produced 85,000 ounces of gold from open pit mining during 1991 and 1992 at an impressive grade of 21.8g/t gold.
The current JORC compliant mineral resource estimate of 230,000 tonnes grading 4.8g/t gold for 36,000 ounces, sits below the existing open pit shell, with nearly 78% of the gold contained within the confident “indicated” resource category.
According to Spectrum, the gold historically produced from Penny West was free-milling in nature, with exceptional metallurgical recoveries of about 95%.
In 2016, the previous owners of Penny West completed drilling that returned an intersection of 16 metres grading 19.9g/t gold in a position 40m below the base of the existing open pit which represents a potential short-term mining target for Spectrum.
