Kin Mining NL (ASX:KIN) has confirmed that there is sufficient water available for project activities at the Leonora Gold Project in Western Australia.
The company has completed a drilling program aimed at annually providing a sustainable 1.5 million tonnes of suitable quality water to the Cardinia processing plant.
There were 43 reverse circulation (RC) water production boreholes completed across the project for 4,325 metres.
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CEO Andrew Munckton said: “The water exploration activities have yielded reasonable success.
“Kin will now move to confirm the sustainable yields and required number of bores for full water supply for the Cardinia plant as well as dewatering plans for the Helens and Bruno Lewis pits.”
Drilling focused on Cardinia Creek, including the Helens and Bruno Lewis open pit areas, as well as Bummer Creek.
Good success rate at Bummer Creek
There was a good success rate at Bummer Creek with four of eight holes yielding sufficient water of greater than 5 litres per second to justify development testing.
This area is about 14 kilometres southeast of the plant site.
At Cardinia Creek, previous RC drilling associated with gold exploration intersected water at relatively shallow depths.
The recent program had a lower success rate with four of 35 holes yielding sufficient water to justify development testing.
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Next steps will include test pumping to confirm sustainable yield at Bummer Creek followed by additional exploration if the yield is confirmed.
Production bore development and testing is scheduled for the current quarter.
TSF site is suitable
Kin also conducted a sterilisation drill program over the footprint of the proposed tailings storage facility site (TSF), about 1 kilometre south of the processing plant location.
RC drilling followed up anomalous aircore results with a total of 2,273 metres completed.
Munckton said: “The sterilisation drilling at the proposed TSF location has confirmed its suitability.
“Further sterilisation drilling works will expand the sites available for tailings and waste dump storage away from the many mineralised corridors at the project.”
The vast majority of assay results were below the 0.01 g/t gold detection limit.