Aurumin Ltd (ASX:AUN) is expanding the footprint of its Sandstone Gold Operations in WA after entering a binding Heads of Agreement (HoA) to acquire the highly prospective Birrigrin Mining Centre from Westar Resources Ltd (ASX:WSR).
Tenement M57/352 contains the historical high-grade Birrigrin Mining Centre and is within the Gum Creek Greenstone sequence, about 70 kilometres north of Aurumin’s Central Sandstone Project.
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This tenement has 39 mapped shafts dating to the early 1900s with recorded production grades up to 196 g/t gold.
These shafts are largely untested at depth by drilling along with the tenement as a whole. Further data collation of other previous activity is ongoing.
“Expanding our footprint”
Aurumin's managing director Brad Valiukas said: "We are pleased to be further expanding our footprint in the Sandstone region with this mining lease, covering the historical Birrigrin Mining Centre and its historical small-scale, but high-grade, production.
"The Birrigrin Mining Centre is approximately 70 kilometres north of the existing processing plant location and we remain focused on generating critical mass for future production.
“This acquisition provides another opportunity to build on our existing 946,000-ounce Sandstone Operations resource.”
M57/352 (Birrigrin Mining Centre) with historical shafts and grades.
Largely untested
Little modern exploration has occurred on the tenement with existing surface geochemistry thought to be largely ineffective to date.
A 2020 aeromagnetic survey and recent mapping have provided new insight into the geology of the area and multiple untested targets exist.
Additionally, recent prospecting on the tenement has unearthed numerous gold nuggets requiring follow-up work, which Aurumin intends to undertake.
The company will issue Westar 2 million AUN shares which have a value of $168,000 at 8.4 cents each.
Aurumin has also applied for exploration tenement E57/1273 that borders the Birrigrin Mining Centre to the east, west and south.
About Sandstone
The Sandstone Gold Operations were cornerstoned by the acquisition of the Central Sandstone Project by the company in early 2022.
Central Sandstone comprises an 881,300-ounce gold mineral resource and project infrastructure that the company aims to use to support a gold mining operation in the future.