OceanaGold Corporation (ASX: OGC) has delivered an increased gold Resource for its Blackwater Project after receiving deep drilling results that show continuity of mineralisation at depth.
The project’s Inferred resource has increased to 0.9 million tonnes at 21 grams per tonne (g/t) for 0.6 million ounces of gold.
OceanaGold successfully intersected the Birthday Reef in WA25 parent and daughter holes around 250 metres vertically below the lowest mined level of the historic Blackwater Mine during the March quarter of 2013.
Importantly, this indicates the continuation of the ore body below previously mined workings.
Notable results from the parent hole included 0.45 metres at 31.8g/t gold from 1,118.95 metres, 0.41 metres at 62.40 g/t gold from 1,134.18 metres and 0.59 metres at 3.91g/t gold from 1,190.77 metres.
The daughter hole intersected the reef 5 metres from the parent hole, with intercepts including 0.71 metres at 134g/t gold from 1,136.40 metres and 0.45 metres at 61.90g/t gold from 1,195.20 metres.
All results are consistent with the historically mined widths and grades and indicate that the Birthday Reef continues for at least 680 metres vertically below the last worked level of the Blackwater Mine.
Historically, each vertical metre of the reef produced around 1,000 ounces of gold resource.
A Prefeasibility Study is now set to begin to expand on previous conceptual mining scenarios and include a mining method options study targeting a production rate of 50,000 to 60,000 ounces of gold per annum.
The Blackwater Mine was the largest historical producer in the Reefton Goldfield with 740,400 ounces from 1.6 million tonnes for a recovered grade of 14.6g/t gold.
This represents more than one third of the 2 million ounces of gold historically produced from hard rock sources in the region.
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