PERTH – Ballarat Goldfields [ASX:BGF] has raised a few eyebrows with the claim its Ballarat project has a potential gold endowment of 6 million ounces. The Aussie minnow today (Wednesday) released an initial indicated and inferred resource for Ballarat in central Victoria of 2 million tonnes grading 10.7g/t for a contained 700,000oz following the completion of a geological reinterpretation and initial exploration campaign.
Managing director Richard Laufmann told Mineweb the latest modelling work was aimed at generating an accurate structural picture and improving the company’s understanding of the historic goldfield.
“As a result we are now in the process of redesigning our exploration program to accommodate a newly identified exploration potential of 6Moz,” stated Ballarat, adding that while this estimate wasn’t a JORC resource, it was a conservative figure.
More than 9Moz of gold was produced from the old alluvial workings at Ballarat, with about 2.5Moz of that coming from quartz mines. “This reflects both the intensity of gold mineralisation in the area and also the lack of underground exploration and exploitation,” said Ballarat, which is currently investigating the deeper quartz vein hosted deposits.
The company told the market it could now confidently predict a range of between 2.5Moz and 10Moz for its main target zones. Such impressive numbers suggest the historic field, which sits under the city of Ballarat, could support a viable modern underground operation. “With over 4Moz above a depth of 1,000m on the Ballarat East field alone, a significant portion of the targets lie within 200m adjacent to the existing decline.”
If the results of exploration and, down the track, the economics of a proposed mine stack up, Ballarat could well get a knock on its door from one of the South African gold mining giants who are old hands at deep level extraction. Harmony Gold Mining already has a 30 percent stake in another Aussie junior, Bendigo Mining [ASX:BDG], which is hoping to approve later this year the planned New Bendigo commercial development beneath the larger historic Victorian goldfield, Bendigo, which produced over 20Moz.
Laufmann was hoping to submit a conceptual study proposal for a possible sub-A$50 million development to shareholders by the end of this year.
Investors didn’t dive into the stock but nevertheless liked the sound of the educated guesses Ballarat provided, pushing its shares up more than 10 percent to a closing price of A$0.052
BGF Price at posting:
0.0¢ Sentiment: None Disclosure: Not Held
