Focus Minerals Ltd (ASX:FML) has released a mineral resource upgrade for CNX deposit of the Coolgardie Gold Project in WA with the open pit resource increasing 30% to 159,000 ounces.
The increase was achieved on the back of successful drilling campaigns, which also highlighted that this shallow gold deposit remains open at depth and along strike.
Importantly, there has been a 66% conversion of the December 2020 CNX resource to the indicated status following June 2021 quarter drilling programs.
Drilling confirmed average mineralisation width of 35 metres over 700 metres of strike, highlighting CNX’s bulk mining potential with additional resource development drilling underway.
Proposed restart
Focus Minerals’ CEO Zhaoya Wang said: “The growing bulk-style CNX deposit is ideally located to supply our Three Mile Hill plant, which will be the centrepiece of a proposed restart of gold mining operations at Coolgardie.
“It is likely that the fast-expanding CNX deposit will be the primary source of open-pit mill feed in the initial years of a resumption of mining.
“Further resource additions at CNX and at the highly exciting Green Light target will strongly enhance our mining plans at Coolgardie.”
Updated pre-feasibility study
The Coolgardie Gold Project covers 175 square kilometres of highly prospective tenements on the outskirts of Coolgardie township in the Goldfields region.
An updated pre-feasibility study (PFS) delivered a NPV7.5% of $183 million prior to the latest mineral resource success at CNX.
CNX is immediately northwest along strike to the Three Mile Hill open-cut mine and close to the Three Mile Hill processing plant.
CNX's resource comprises 2.2 million tonnes at 1.5 g/t for 105,000 ounces in the indicated category and 1.2 million tonnes at 1.4 g/t for 55,000 ounces in the inferred category.
The updated CNX open pit mineral resource is reported on a dry tonnage basis using a 0.7 g/t gold cut-off to 290mRL and a southern strike extent cut-off of 6,577,490mN.
Focus is now planning another drilling program targeting a resource extension.
Green Light
Focus has confirmed 400 metres of CNX-style mineralisation at the nearby Green Light target and mineralisation remains open.
Based on current understanding of the CNX-Three Mile Hill mine corridor geology and mineralisation intersected to date at Green Light, Focus has determined an initial Green Light open pit exploration target of 1.1-1.5 million tonnes at a grade of 1.4-1.5 g/t for 50,000-70,000 ounces.
This will be assessed by exploration drilling and resource modelling over the next 12 months with first drilling using diamond and reverse circulation (RC) holes starting this month.
The potential quantity and grade of this exploration target are conceptual in nature and therefore an approximation.
There has been insufficient exploration to estimate a mineral resource and it is uncertain if further exploration will result in the estimation of a resource.