Ann: Highest grades yet returned at Menzies Gold Project, page-36

Sleeping Giant

Historically, the Menzies project (MGP) was one of the highest-grade producers in WA’s Eastern Goldfields, with the five underground mines producing between 16 grams per tonne (g/t) and 32g/t gold over their respective life of mine for a total of 650,000oz at 22.5g/t.

And yet modern exploration over the area has been limited since mining ceased at the MGP over 20 years ago.

New results from Kingwest, including a record-breaking 3m grading 158.4g/t gold intercept at the First Hit gold mine, indicates that there is lot of high-grade stuff left in the ground.

That was underlined by a surprise discovery within Lady Shenton, where shallow drilling hit 3m at 7.2g/t from 47m, including 1m at 13.4g/t from 47m.

Kingwest says this drilling at Lady Shenton, which was not targeting shallow lodes specifically, hit a new lode sub-parallel to the lodes that host the proven, high-grade Lady Shenton deposit.

Chief executive Ed Turner says these early drilling results have strengthened the company’s belief that high-grade ore zones continue at First Hit and Lady Shenton “and throughout the MGP”.

“Historically, the underground workings at the First Hit gold deposit collectively produced 164,138 ounces of gold at an extraordinary 32.5g/t gold,” Turner says.

“We were expecting something exceptional if we drilled enough holes in the right areas and 3m at 158.4g/t gold is hard to beat, and it is within one of our high-grade exploration targets that we announced only last month.

“The Kingwest drilling has now proven that high-grade gold continues beneath the historic workings and diamond drilling is underway at Lady Shenton and will then move to Yunndaga — both large, historically high-grade producers.

“Our aim to test for the potential to delineate similar resources should be very exciting for our shareholders.”

A seven to eight week, 4,700m diamond drilling program into the deeper high-grade targets in and below the existing Yunndaga, Lady Shenton and First Hit gold mines has now kicked off.