Brightstar Resources (ASX:BTR) has begun early stage talks with regional processing facilities for toll-treating Menzies material as part of a Prefeasibility Study (PFS) for its Cork Tree Well prospect in Western Australia.
The $28.44 million market capitalisation company says the engagements are in conjunction with ongoing workstreams for the PFS with mining and haulage contractors being contacted for budget pricing.
Brightstar has also posted multiple ‘high-grade’ hits with visible gold at the Cork Tree Well prospect, as part of its Laverton Gold Project.
The results, generated from the first 2 diamond holes of an ongoing program, demonstrate gold grades up to 172.41 grams per tonne gold, as well as multiple instances of visible gold in cut core.
According to Brightstar, the results will feed into the ongoing PFS, with metallurgical and geotechnical properties being determined from the program to inform open pit mine design and process plant design criteria.
Assays for 16 remaining holes are outstanding, but have been prioritised for expedited turn-around.
Brightstar Resources Managing Director Alex Rovira believes the company has only scratched the surface at the prospect with ‘strong’ potential to build on the existing 303,000 ounce mineral resource.
“These holes were the first diamond holes drilled at Cork Tree Well by Brightstar, with our understanding of the geological model and mineralisation styles defined by over 28km of previous Brightstar RC drilling being enhanced by the knowledge being gained from this plus 2,000m diamond core program currently in progress.
Due to the high grades returned, several re-assays were completed to cross-check the veracity of the initial result in certain cases, with multiple high-grade re-assays and visible gold supporting a coarse-grained nuggety gold mineralisation model at Delta.
Importantly, Delta is still open at depth with the deepest hole in the vicinity, SDR126001, returning 31m at 2.12g/t Au highlighting the immense potential for high-grade depth extensions.
These four diamond holes will form the basis for metallurgical testwork within our Prefeasibility Study which envisages the broader Cork Tree Well project to form the baseload ore feed to our wholly owned processing plant and associated infrastructure located 30km south of Laverton.”
Brightstar Resources is a Perth-based gold explorer and developer which owns the namesake processing plant, a 60-man accommodation camp and non-processing infrastructure about 30km southeast of Laverton and within 60km of its 511,000 ounce gold JORC resource within the Laverton Gold Project.
Write to Adam Drought at Mining.com.au
Images: Brightstar Resources
