Excelsior to commence drilling Kalgoorlie North

THE DRILL SERGEANT: Excelsior Gold is set to commence a further phase of reverse circulation and diamond drilling at its Kalgoorlie North project.

The drilling is designed to provide the company with metallurgical samples and additional resource information at the Excelsior deposit.

It will also test high-grade intercepts previously identified in historical drilling at Bulletin and Jackorite, which the company considers to offer potential for resource expansion and near term mine development.

The program will consist of an approximately 2,000 metres of RC drilling and 1,000 metres of diamond drilling.

The majority of the drilling will be conducted so the company can improve current resource models and also collect metallurgical samples at the Excelsior deposit and at several of the satellite deposits in the Excelsior area.

The company claims the Excelsior deposit and nine other resources within a four kilometre radius of Excelsior potentially offer multiple open pit mine development options that would be supplemented by higher grade underground potential at the Zoroastrian deposit.

 

Kalgoorlie North gold project. Source: Company announcement.

This area currently hosts in excess of 618,000 ounces in resources (14.2 million tonnes at 1.36 grams per tonne gold at 0.6 grams per tonne gold Au cut-off) and has been earmarked by Excelsior as a priority area for future mining pre-feasibility studies.

In excess of 85 per cent of the resource ounces are concentrated in the cluster of deposits in the central Excelsior-Zoroastrian area which has been the focus for the company’s resource development program to date.

Small, highly-targeted drilling campaigns carried out by the company have increased resources to the point where this area is earmarked for more detailed mining studies during 2012.

The company’s resource expansion drilling campaigns will now extend to other target areas within the Kalgoorlie North tenements.

With the commencement of this latest drilling campaign, Excelsior Gold is accelerating the program of drilling, resource expansion and metallurgical test work which will form a basis for pre-feasibility studies into multiple open pit and underground mine development at the Kalgoorlie North gold project.