West Australian gold explorer Focus Minerals Ltd (ASX: FML) has drilled a number of significant intersections at its Coolgardie Gold Project.
CEO, Zhaoya Wang, said the exploration drilling results, which was completed across several Coolgardie deposits, will further enhance the Mineral Resource position at Coolgardie ahead of a proposed resumption of gold production.
Follow-up Mineral Resource updates for several deposits are now underway for: Alicia, Big Blow, Brilliant and CNX. Mineral Resource updates will be released as they are completed with the first updates expected to be completed in the June 2021 Quarter.
Geotechnical, metallurgical and hydrogeological studies are also being advanced so that several additional deposits can be added to an improved Coolgardie mining schedule.
The work underway is expected to further enhance the value outlined by the updated Coolgardie Pre- feasibility Study (PFS) released in September 2020.
Mr Wang said key objectives of the current work focus are:
- Increase quality and quantity of base load open pit mill feed to extend and improve the mine schedule by updating the Brilliant and CNX Mineral Resources
- Replace some base load mill feed with potentially higher margin shallow open pit resources to improve early production cashflows and to extend mine life; and
- Acquire feasibility level geotech, metallurgy, environmental samples and hydrogeological data to refine pit designs and support permitting for a production restart.
Commenting on the progress towards resumption of production at the Coolgardie Gold Project, Focus Minerals’ CEO, Mr Zhaoya Wang, said.
Our efforts to re-examine the mineral endowment at Coolgardie continues to deliver significant positive value for Focus. This latest round of drilling results announced today confirms the potential across Coolgardie to underpin the business case of restarting production at Coolgardie,” Mr Wang said.
“Importantly, the continued exploration success vindicates our firm view of prospectivity of mineral endowment at Coolgardie for sustainable mining operations. Mineral Resource updates for several deposits are underway and Coolgardie mining schedule will be optimised in due course.”
Focus has identified a previously unmined open pit opportunity at the Alicia Deposit, which is located south of Tindals and immediately to the east and sub-parallel to the Empress deposit. The site is accessed by existing haul roads that form a network between Tindals/Dreadnought/Brilliant. No significant mining of the Alicia deposit has occurred to date and the deposit is essentially intact.
