Brightstar Resources has begun a diamond drilling campaign at its Cork Tree Well (CTW) prospect, part of the Laverton gold project in Western Australia.
The campaign will encompass a twenty hole, 2000m drilling program designed for metallurgical and geotechnical purposes.
The diamond drilling is targeted across the open pit shells the company delivered in a scoping study released in September 2023.
Brightstar managing director Alex Rovira welcomed the commencement of drilling, which he said will improve Brightstar’s knowledge of geological and geotechnical domains within the CTW area.
“Brightstar has commenced the maiden diamond drilling campaign at Cork Tree Well in order to generate information both within the ore zones and the designed pit walls, which will provide the requisite material for metallurgical test work,” he said.
“We are also expecting to receive assay results from reverse circulation drilling competed at the Aspacia and link zone deposits at the Menzies gold project in December.”
The Menzies gold project is one of WA’s major historic gold fields, located 130km north of the globally significant gold deposits of Kalgoorlie.
The Aspacia program sits approximately 800km south of Brightstar’s Selkirk deposit, which is being mined in a joint venture with BML Ventures.
Rovira said a positive result from assays at Aspacia could see it entering the pre-feasibility study (PFS) stage.
“This 5000m program was designed as extensional and infill drilling to grow the existing resource at the link zone and provide sufficient drill density to potentially declare a maiden resource at Aspacia,” he said.
“It is an exciting time to be drilling, growing our mineral resource base, completing the technical work for the PFS underway and also see the progress our joint venture partners BML are making with the Selkirk mining campaign, which is due to conclude this quarter.
“A successful mining campaign at Selkirk will see positive cashflow generated for Brightstar to continue to fund exploration efforts across the Laverton and Menzies gold projects.”
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