Greatland Gold has intercepted further high-grade results at its Havieron copper-gold joint venture project in Western Australia after the company ramped up its drilling program.
According to company, six drill rigs are now operational at the project, which the United Kingdom-based miner is exploring alongside Newcrest Mining.
The results include 52.7m at 7.1 grams per tonne (g/t) gold and 0.04 per cent copper at the Northwest Pod, as well as 69m at 0.72g/t gold and 1.1 per cent copper at Northern Breccia.
Greatland Gold chief executive officer Shaun Day said the ramp up of the 2022 growth drill program is an exciting time for the company and its shareholders as it presents an opportunity to further understand the size and scale of the Havieron system.
“This growth drilling program is already delivering pleasing results with high-grade sulphide mineralisation confirmed in the NW Pod, several hundred metres away from the South East Crescent and Eastern Breccia zones,” Day said.
“This, along with a continuation of the high-grade mineralisation outside of the recently updated initial mineral resource for the Eastern Breccia is a fantastic start to the calendar year.”
Day said the company is encouraged by the higher grade copper results it is seeing near the base of the Northern Breccia.
“With five drill rigs testing extensions to the current mineralised system and a further drill rig testing for new opportunities on the mining licence outside of the immediate known mineralisation, the 2022 drilling programme lays the foundation for defining the next phase of Havieron’s growth,” he said.
Drilling to test geophysical targets outside of the known Havieron system is ongoing, including evaluating the Havieron dolerite at multiple intervals north and south of the site’s mineralised pipe.
Greatland Gold released a statement recently indicating a 53 per cent increase in Havieron’s total gold content to 5.5 million ounces (oz) of gold. Havieron’s indicated mineral resource had also increased by 63 per cent to 3.1 million oz of gold.
Greatland Gold suggested it was an “independently assessed update” of a “point in time” on Havieron’s mineral resources and ore reserves.
The company said the results are derived from a further 87 drill holes (59,270m of drilling) completed since the last resources and reserves update published in October’s pre-feasibility study (PFS), which incorporated drilling results up to February 2021.