Bellevue Gold Ltd’s (ASX:BGL) recent infill drilling at the Deacon and Bellevue North lodes has increased the indicated resource at its flagship gold project in Western Australia by 20% to 1.04 million ounces of gold at 11.4 g/t.
Exploration drilling at Bellevue project will now revert to resource growth at Viago North, Tribune North, Vlad, Deacon North, Armand Lode and the newly discovered Maceline lode, with four rigs on-site and a fifth rig expected shortly.
This increased estimate further strengthens the baseline economic study now underway on the project, providing scope for longer mine life, an increased production profile and stronger financial returns.
The total resource at the Bellevue Gold Project now stands at 2.41 million ounces at 10 g/t gold, comprised of 1.04 million ounces at 11.4 g/t gold of indicated and 1.37 million ounces at 9.2 g/t gold of inferred.
“Outstanding result”
Managing director Steve Parsons said: “This is an outstanding result which demonstrates the exceptional quality of the mineralised system at Bellevue.
“To have an indicated resource of this size and this grade and with such immense scope for further increases highlights the underlying strength of the project.”
Parsons said the drilling results at Bellevue continued to show the potential to create further value for shareholders through exploration.
“Despite the huge success we have had, I have no doubt that there is still a lot more high-grade gold to be found at Bellevue.
“We are consistently hitting gold along strike and are continuing to find new discoveries with ongoing drilling.
“I’m very confident we will achieve our goal of generating significantly more value for shareholders through exploration at the same time as we develop the mine and infrastructure in preparation for production.”
High-grade results
The increased indicated resource stems from drilling completed between August and November 2020 which has focused predominantly on infill drilling at Deacon North and the new Armand Lode.
A total of 46,000 metres of diamond drilling has been completed since the previous estimate in July 2020, including infill, extensional exploration drilling and geotechnical drilling.
Further high-grade gold has been intersected in a new 550-metre-long electromagnetic (EM) conductor north of the Deacon North lode called the Maceline lode.
Assay results include:
- 2.6 metres at 14.7 g/t gold from 454 metres and 25.9 metres at 4.3 g/t from 478 metres;
- 1.4 metres at 63.2 g/t from 434.9 metres;
- 2.6 metres at 14.7 g/t from 454 metres; and
- 2.6 metres at 10.2 g/t from 462.8 metres at 16.3 g/t from 498.3 metres.
Three independent mining areas
Recent drilling results from Armand include the most northern drill hit to date on the shoot, which returned 8.3 metres at 32.1 g/t from 358.5 metres in DRDD545.
Other drill results from Armand include:
- 8.3 metres at 32.1 g/t from 358.5 metres;
- 6.5 metres at 23.4 g/t from 384.8 metres;
- 5 metres at 15.4 g/t from 360.2 metres; and
- 1.9 metres at 29.7 g/t from 379.4 metres.
The addition of Armand creates three independent mining areas between Armand, Deacon and Viago totalling 1.15 million tonnes at 15.2 g/t gold for 560,000 ounces of indicated gold within those high-grade areas.
Diamond drilling is also targeting new lode discoveries based on high-priority conceptual and structural gold targets in the Bellevue near-mine area.
Underground drilling is expected to commence this quarter, capitalising on the lower costs and increased productivity compared with surface drilling.