Red 5 has grown its underground resource at the King of the Hills gold project in Western Australia with a 19 per cent increase that could help to extend the site’s 4.5-year mine life.
The company reported a 130,000-ounce increase to the underground resource at King of the Hills after completing 33,088 metres of underground drilling in 2020.
This has resulted in an underground indicated and inferred resource of 12.1 million tonnes at 12.1 grams of gold for 830,000 ounces of contain gold.
According to Red 5, the mine life could now be extended without additional drilling.
“This result confirms the strong potential to extend the mine life of the underground mining operation at King of the Hills, while also confirming the robustness of the broader mineral resource model,” Red 5 managing director Mark Williams said.
“We see significant potential to continue to extend the underground resource at depth with future drilling and the resource remaining open.
“In addition, drilling has increased confidence in this larger underground resource, with all the drilling completed since our last resource update in March 2020 confirming our resource model in terms of both tonnes and grade.”
Red 5 has around 140,000 metres of underground drilling budgeted for the 2022 and 2023 financial years, including 54,000 metres of drilling in the 2022 financial year.
“Underground drilling is scheduled to recommence at King of the Hills in August 2021, initially focused on grade control before moving to resource definition for future resource conversion and growth,” Williams said.
“Given the success of our drill programs to date in establishing the current 4.1 million ounce mineral resource base at KOTH (King of the Hills), we are excited by the potential for further growth in resources and reserves at King of the Hills as we move ahead with construction and prepare to restart operations in 2022.”
Red 5’s updated mineral resource estimate for King of the Hills includes an indicated and inferred resource of 90.7 million tonnes at 1.4 grams per tonne of gold for 4.12 million ounces of contained gold.
The previous resource was 4.07 million ounces of contained gold.
King of the Hills’ indicated resource has also been updated to 69.6 million tonnes at 1.4 grams per tonne of gold for 3.03 million ounces of contained gold.