Tolga gets his way at BellevueTolga Kumova loves using social...

Tolga gets his way at Bellevue

Tolga Kumova loves using social media to share his thoughts on his mining investments, among other things.

One of his recurring themes has been urging his 9 per cent-owned Bellevue Gold (BGL) to bring in more drill rigs and go like the clappers at its namesake high-grade gold deposit near Leinster in WA.

He’s got his wish, with Bellevue boss Steve Parsons telling the Melbourne Mining Club’s Cutting Edge series on Tuesday night that a fifth rig would arrive soon and that a sixth rig could well be ordered up to drill other targets on Bellevue’s 3500sqkm land package.

Mind you, Parsons has not needed Tolga’s urgings to want to step up drilling.

In late April, he confirmed the appointment of Canaccord Genuity to deal with “any interest expressed by third parties in relation to Bellevue”.

The short form of that is that Bellevue is now a takeover “target”. There is no surprise in that given in the space of 13 months, drilling at Bellevue has led to numerous resource upgrades, the latest being 4mt grading 11.8g/t gold for 1.53Moz (inferred).

Any bid pitched now by any one of the half a dozen or so gold miners with treatment plants within a 150km radius of Bellevue (11.8g/t trucks a long way) would pivot around this resource.

But as Parsons made clear at Cutting Edge, 1.53Moz should be seen as nothing more than a stepping-stone to a multi-million-ounce proposition.

“We are discovering gold for less than $15 a resource ounce and that’s every quarter, quarter on quarter,” Parsons said.

“And we expect the resource upgrades to carry on at the same rate of knots and the same sort of size and the same sort of grade as what we have been doing.”

As it is, a resource upgrade is expected at the end of the current (June) quarter. It will take in drilling results from the Tribune and very high-grade Viago lodes. Given the past rate of resource additions, it is eagerly awaited.

The arrival of a fifth drilling rig will add to the story. The current and upcoming resource is based on drilling in the first 500m. The fifth rig will punch in the first deeper holes to test if like most of the high-grade Archean gold systems in WA, Bellevue continues at depth.

“We can’t wait,” Parsons said. Either can Tolga.