Newcrest Mining and Greatland Gold continue to enhance their Havieron gold joint venture project in Western Australia, with fresh drill results further deepening the resource.
Greatland Gold said seven drill rigs were currently on-site, with the South East Crescent, Eastern Breccia and Northern Breccia prospects the key focuses for exploration.
Recent drilling has extended South East Crescent’s mineralisation a further 100m below the current mineral resource estimate, with the deposit now boasting more than 1km of vertical mineralisation. Greatland Gold said South East Crescent continued to remain open at depth.
Of South East Crescent’s recent drill results, HAD133W9 intersected 85.8m at three grams per tonne (g/t) gold and 0.06 per cent copper from 1604m, and 25.3m at 1.1 g/t gold and 0.08 per cent copper from 1471m.
Drilling at Northern Breccia has reinforced its potential, with HAD055W4 returning 149.9m at 2.7 g/t gold and 0.12 per cent copper from 877m, including 13.9m at 22.8 g/t gold and 0.46 per cent copper from 1013m. HAD055W5 struck 96 g/t gold from a 0.5m hit.
Greatland Gold managing director Shaun Day expects Havieron to continue its growth trajectory.
“With an extensive growth drilling program planned over the next 12 months, there is tremendous potential to further expand the Havieron resource and unlock the true scale and value of the broader system,” he said.
“Pleasingly, the decline has encountered better ground conditions, resulting in recent improvements to the decline advancement rates.”
At the end of May, Newcrest had advanced 377.5m of exploration decline at Havieron, with advance rates improving after changes made to the design of the decline.
Greatland Gold and Newcrest remain on track to deliver Havieron’s feasibility study in the December quarter of 2022, with almost 250,000m of drilling (295 drill holes) completed at the project since the June quarter of 2019.