Bellevue Gold Ltd (ASX:BGL) completed its first phase of infill drilling at its Bellevue Gold Project in Western Australia and is now on track to publish a maiden indicated resource in the June quarter, 2020.
The project currently has an Inferred Resource of 2.2 million ounces at 11.3 g/t gold and the infill drilling programme was designed to upgrade the shallow resource areas and selected deeper lodes to the indicated category.
Managing Director Steve Parsons said the completion of the infill drilling programme marked another milestone along the path to project development.
He said: “With this key drilling programme now completed, we can move to finalising a maiden Indicated Resource, which will in turn underpin economic studies.
“The infill drilling has demonstrated the excellent continuity of gold mineralisation as well as robust grades and widths.”
A total of 94,000 metres of infill drilling has now been completed and an upgraded resource is expected to be released in the coming quarter once all assays have been received and resource modelling has been completed by the independent consultant.
Ongoing drilling
The company has two drill rigs operating (down from eight) - one focused on resource growth and one on further indicated conversions.
Parsons: “Now we have completed the first phase of infill drilling ready for the maiden indicated resource, two rigs will remain on site, one focused on resource growth and one on further indicated drilling.
“We are also continuing with step-out drilling with the aim of growing the global resource at Bellevue and we plan to drill two highly promising conductors identified recently at the Deacon lode.”
Deacon exploration update
The company recently released the maiden resource for the Deacon Lode of 1.0 million tonnes at 12.3 g/t gold for 410,000 ounces of contained metal with mineralisation open in every direction.
Exploration drilling is continuing with a diamond rig targeting resource step-outs and a recent down-hole electromagnetic survey (DHEM) on the step-out drill holes has identified a significant conductor 200 metres along strike to the south and another significant conductor 250 metres to the north.
At Bellevue, there is a very high correlation between modeled DHEM conductors and high-grade gold intersections with a very strong association with pyrrhotite and gold.
The company intends to follow up these conductors with the rigs on-site and will continue to follow Deacon up- plunge as the orebody appears to be shallowing to the north.
Economic studies planned
The indicated resource will enable Bellevue to start economic studies and will be supplemented by subsequent infill drilling in other areas.
High-grade mineralisation at Bellevue runs from surface and there is potential to establish multiple open pits that could generate early cash flow.
This would lead to underground development with further shallow drilling planned to support this across the Bellevue hanging wall and associated lodes.
Detailed underground and open pit mining studies are now underway.