Blackham Resources Ltd (ASX:BLK) has increased its Ore Reserve by 27% to 26 million at 1.8 g/t gold for 1.53 million ounces at its Matilda-Wiluna Operation in Western Australia.
Notably, free milling Ore Reserves now total 550,000 ounces, an increase of 190% on last year.
Further conversion of the 6.7 million ounce resource into the Ore Reserve category is expected.
The opportunities to expand the free milling Ore Reserves at Lake Way, Golden Age and Wiluna have been highlighted from drilling over the last six months.
READ: Blackham Resources’ Wiluna open pit restart targets high-grade gold
Blackham’s managing director Bryan Dixon said: “An overall increase in reserves at Wiluna has shown the targeted drilling especially in the northern Wiluna Mine has resulted in a significant increase to both free milling and sulphide Ore Reserves.
“Open pit mining has now commenced at Wiluna to focus on the oxide material which is already providing higher grade feed to the Wiluna Processing Plant and will set a foundation for the next phase of the Wiluna Expansion.”
Four months life added to Golden Age underground mine
The Golden Age underground gold mine had been extended by a further four months to April 2019, which will provide further high-grade mill feed in the second half of FY19.
Another benefactor of the Ore Reserve increase was the Wiluna Open Pit reserves, which increased by 30% to 10.7 million tonnes at 2.5 g/t gold for 867,000 ounces.
This supports Wiluna’s expansion potential which includes converting the underground resources into reserves.