Red 5 is eager to expand its resource base at the Darlot underground gold mine in Western Australia following some encouraging diamond drilling results.
The mid-tier miner intercepted 1.2m at 338 g/t gold from 132.8m at its Dar-Cent prospect, as part of 47,500m of diamond drilling that also explored the Oval 1300 and Pederson Lower orebodies.
Other promising results included a 6.5m hit at 10.2 g/t gold from 54.4m at Pedersen Lower, and a 14.1m intercept at 7 g/t gold from 48.9m at Oval 1300.
Red 5 has also completed 28,500m of resource development and grade control drilling at Darlot’s Middle Walters South orebody since July 2020.
As part of a recent drilling program, the miner made some high-grade intercepts at Middle Walters South, including 6.4m at 81.7 grams per tonne (g/t) gold from 264.5m, 1.9m at 150.5 g/t gold from 1.9m and 2.8m at 21.4 g/t gold from 189m.
Drilling has extended the known mineralisation at Middle Walters South and paves the way for further resource expansion at Darlot.
“These drilling results demonstrate the significant potential to both grow the existing Darlot underground resource and to extend the new mining areas we are targeting within the Darlot underground mining system,” Red 5 managing director Mark Williams said.
“Middle Walters South is the first significant new underground mining area accessed at Darlot since the Oval development commenced in 2016.
“Accessing this area opens up new exploration platforms from which we can target the Oval and Walters structures, with this region expected to be the primary driver for resource and reserve growth at Darlot in the near term.”
It comes as Red 5 began commissioning the crushing circuit at its King of the Hills (KOTH) gold project in WA in early February, as the company targets first gold next quarter.
Recent milestones achieved at KOTH include the crushing circuit switchroom powering up, the beginning of piping and electricals for the SAG mill, and the installation of all powerline poles.
Red 5 was trading at $0.30 at the time of writing with a market capitalisation of $718.69 million.