Alkane Resources Ltd (ASX:ALK) has produced an initial inferred resource estimate of 4.7 million ounces gold equivalent for the Northern Molong Porphyry Project’s Kaiser deposit in central New South Wales, 500 metres north of the Boda deposit.
The estimate is based on data from 49,400 metres of drilling, using a 0.3 g/t gold equivalent cut-off deemed suitable for potential open cut mining.
The average grade for Kaiser exceeds that of Boda due to higher copper grades present in the deposit:
- Kaiser: 270 million tonnes at 0.54g/t gold equivalent for 4.7 million ounces gold equivalent (2.05 million ounces gold, 0.48 million tonnes copper)
- Boda: 624 million tonnes at 0.51g/t gold equivalent for 10.1 million ounces gold equivalent (5.21 million ounces gold, 0.90 million tonnes copper)
- Total: 894 million tonnes at 0.52g/t gold equivalent for 14.8 million ounces gold equivalent (7.26 million ounces gold, 1.38 million tonnes copper)
Copper exceeds value of gold
“This addition of the Kaiser resource to Boda further demonstrates the significant potential of the Northern Molong Porphyry Project and Alkane’s large tenement package,” Alkane Resources managing director Nic Earner said.
“Kaiser and Boda together now approaches 15 million gold equivalent ounces, and after adding Kaiser, copper now exceeds the value of gold in the system.
“We expect the resource to grow further as we continue to test extensions south of Boda and we’ll also conduct infill drilling to update Kaiser and Boda to Indicated resource classification before the end of the year.
“Alkane is also continuing the preliminary work that is required to further understand mining and processing options for the future and are looking to wrap these into a concept study as the indicated resource is released.”
Alkane expects to produce updated resource estimates for both Kaiser and Boda by the end of the calendar year.