Underground portal area at Ramelius Resources' Vivien underground gold mine near Leinster in Western Australia.
Ramelius Resources has intersected significant high grade gold mineralisation under the historic Milky Way open pit within its Mt Magnet gold camp in Western Australia’s Mid-West region.
The brownfields discovery was intersected by the Company’s first deep exploration drill hole below the shallow Milky Way pit, which is located just 3.6 kilometres southwest of the operating Checker Gold Mill at Mt Magnet.
The drill hole was targeted 80 metres down-dip of a historical high grade gold intersection which was previously thought to have been closed off. The historical hole returned 8 metres at 23.7 grams per tonne (g/t) gold from a depth of 100 metres.
The new hole intersected 6 metres at 11.64 g/t gold from 189 metres, including 2 metres at 33.4 g/t from 190 metres. The intersection is contained within a 6 metre-wide mineralised fault zone, thought to be a down-dip extension of the historic drilling.
Ramelius Resources managing director Mark Zeptner said the discovery was highly encouraging for future exploration.
“The positive results from the first exploration drill hole demonstrates potential for further gold production within the Mt Magnet gold camp,” Mr Zeptner said.
In addition to the high grade intersections, the entire length of the felsic porphyry being targeted under Milky Way returned anomalous gold mineralisation from 129 metres down to hole-end at 246 metres.
“Gold mineralisation remains open in all directions and step-out drilling to test the dip and strike continuity of the high grade fault zone and the broader mineralised porphyry unit are planned,” Mr Zeptner said.
The Company is also on track to mine the first ore from its Vivien underground gold mine near Leinster in WA next month. The Vivien gold deposit has estimated gold resources of 185,000 ounces, providing an initial mine life of three years.
Mr Zeptner said the time is right to progress the underground project which began in May 2015.
“We’ve assessed our position and we think it is the right time to progress the Vivien mine, as we have strong financial backing and the value of the Australian dollar has decreased,” he said.
“We are delighted to be progressing with the development of the Vivien underground deposit.
“We expect to begin trucking ore from Vivien to Mt Magnet in January 2016.”
In addition to developing a new production source at Vivien, Ramelius Resources has commenced infrastructure work on its Kathleen Valley gold mine which is just 50km north of Vivien.
When developed, Kathleen Valley and Vivien will provide high grade feed to the Mt Magnet treatment plant.
Ramelius Resources owns 100% of the Mt Magnet gold camp and the operations helped return the Company to an operating profit in FY2015.