De Grey Mining’s new exploration data has further solidified the potential of its Hemi deposit within the Mallina gold project in Western Australia.
Resource definition and extensional drilling at Hemi’s Falcon zone has returned broad sections of mineralisation near surface and at depth.
Extensional drilling has realised a further 300m of mineralisation below the scoping study design, proving Falcon’s potential to at least 600m below ground.
Falcon drilling has demonstrated a north–south trending structure creating east and west zones.
Two intersections within the east zone suggest mineralisation at 140m and 200m below the scoping study design, respectively. HEDD050 returned a hit of 52m at 1.2 grams per tonne (g/t) of gold while HEDD051 intercepted 43.8m at 1 g/t of gold.
Drilling in Falcon’s north demonstrated mineralisation at a depth of approximately 600 metres, with HEDD051 returning 20.3m at 1 g/t of gold.
“Resource definition and extensional drilling at Falcon are respectively increasing the confidence level of the resource and extending mineralisation below the scoping study open pit design,” De Grey managing director Glenn Jardine said.
“Resource definition drilling is being conducted at Falcon and other zones at Hemi to increase the proportion of JORC indicated mineralisation.
“This drilling aims to increase the prefeasibility study (PFS) production target above the scoping study production target of 4.3 million ounces (Moz) and to increase the PFS evaluation period beyond the scoping study evaluation period of 10 years.”
In October 2021, De Grey released its Mallina PFS which suggested a projected average gold production of approximately 473,000 ounces of gold per annum at an average grade of 1.6 g/t across the mine’s first five years.
The PFS demonstrated Mallina’s potential to produce approximately 427,000 ounces across 10 years at an average grade of 1.4 g/t, suggesting a 4.3 Moz operation in total.
Jardine said recent drilling had been focussed on maximising the PFS’s production target. Following the March quarter, De Grey aims to complete resource and extensional drilling spanning all of Hemi’s six main zones.