Gascoyne Resources (ASX:GCY) has increased the Mineral Resource Estimate (MRE) at the Gilbey’s North-Never Never deposit by 183%, with grades up 99% to 4.64 grams per tonne.
The company says this MRE update has increased the resource to 2.03 million tonnes for 303,100 ounces. This comprises an open-pit MRE of 1.10 million tonnes @ 2.45g/t Au for 86,500 ounces, and an underground MRE of 930,000 tonnes @ 7.22g/t Au for 216,600 ounces.
The MRE is for the 100% owned Dalgaranga Gold Project in Western Australia, including a significant update to the MRE for the Never Never Gold Deposit. As the Never Never deposit makes up the bulk of the MRE, the Gilbey’s North – Never Never deposits are now collectively referred to by the company as the Never Never Gold Deposit.
The updated MRE was generated from 30,223m of drilling which includes 417 reverse circulation (RC) holes, 4 diamond drillholes, and 4 RC with diamond drill tails completed since December 2021.
Commenting on the updated MRE, Gascoyne Resources Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and Managing Director Simon Lawson says: “The rapid growth in the Never Never deposit, underlined by this landmark resource upgrade, truly stamps this new discovery as a significant gold find. An updated MRE of over 300,000 ounces at 4.6g/t gold is a spectacular result, particularly given that less than 12 months ago there were 0 ounces attributable to this piece of ground.
“Importantly, Never Never is mineralised from surface, remains completely open to the north-northwest and still very much wide open at depth”
Importantly, Never Never is mineralised from surface, remains completely open to the north-northwest and still very much wide open at depth. With a healthy plus 2g/t gold grade in the open pit portion of the resource and an exceptional grade of more than 7g/t in our underground domain, we are very excited about the prospect of defining more of this material in 2023 and beyond.
At Never Never, we have drilled close-spaced grade control holes to a depth of 50m, with every fourth or fifth hole down to 100m depth to ensure we are as confident as we can be near-surface.
We also targeted any gaps in our initial exploration drill patterns greater than 50m to ensure we achieved the best possible result and convert as much of this material as possible to the higher-confidence indicated resource classification in the updated MRE. We also drilled a series of deeper holes to test the down-plunge continuity and veracity of the gold mineralisation at Never Never.
We now have a clear picture of what continues to emerge as a spectacular new West Australian gold discovery, with high-grade gold mineralisation extending from surface to over 500m down-plunge.
To date, all our drilling at Never Never has exceeded our expectations and, with a hit rate of greater than 90% on high-grade gold across the deposit and with consistent high grades and visible gold intercepts seen throughout the deposit and to depth, there is certainly a lot more to come in 2023.”
Gascoyne Resources reports ‘substantial’ resource growth at Never Never in turn has increased the MRE for Dalgaranga by 30%. It also notes this partially offsets the increase in mining depletion at Dalgaranga during H2 2022.
The company says no changes have been made to the Glenburgh Gold Project, or Egerton Gold Project MREs.
The Never Never Gold deposit is located on an existing mining lease within 1km of Gascoyne Resources’ 100% owned 2.5 million tonnes per annum (tpa) Dalgaranga processing plant.
The Dalgaranga project is located 475km northeast of Perth, and about 65km northwest of Mt Magnet in Western Australia. The project includes a fully developed gold mining operation, and an extensive exploration landholding with outstanding opportunities for new discoveries.
Gascoyne Resources is an ASX-listed gold company focused on the Dalgaranga project, which during financial year 2022 produced more than 70,000 ounces of gold before being placed on care and maintenance in November 2022 pending the development of a new strategic operating plan.
Images: Gascoyne Resources Limited