Musgrave Minerals Drills Its Way to Gold Success
THE DRILL SERGEANT: Musgrave Minerals has been one of the standout performers among junior gold stocks in recent months due to its success with drilling at the Break of Day deposit, part of its Cue gold project in Western Australia’s Murchison district.
Musgrave shares have soared from 10 cents at the start of April to a record high of 83 cents this week thanks primarily to some thick, near-surface and exceptionally high-grade hits from the Starlight lode at Break of Day, including:
85 metres at 11.6 grams per tonne gold from 7m,
60m at 13.1 g/t gold from 76m, and
42m at 77.3 g/t gold from 30m.
Musgrave Minerals managing director Rob Waugh, a former WMC geologist, told The Resources Roadhouse the Starlight discovery might never have happened had the company not challenged conventional thinking around the geology that features in that part of the Murchison.
“There was a slight geological anomaly that didn’t fit the existing model,” Waugh said.
“That was reason enough for us to start thinking differently.
“We turned the drill rig around.”
The mineralised structure in which existing resources at on Musgrave’as 100 per cent-owned ground at Cue (6.45 million tonnes at 3g/t gold for 613,000 ounces) are hosted run in a north-west/south-east orientation, whereas the holes drilled at Starlight are the only holes in the whole project area drilled in a north-east/south-west orientation.
The interpretation confirmed by Starlight’s discovery has shed a new light on Cue and already resulted in the discovery of another parallel lode, White Light, at Break of Day.
Musgrave has advised that it will release an updated resource estimate for Break of Day including Starlight and White Light at the end of the September quarterly, which should see a material increase to the deposit’s current resource of 868,000 tonnes at 7.2g/t gold for 199,000 ounces.
Break of Day already demonstrated the potential to support a mine; the new discovery at Starlight has only increased its development prospects as the near-surface gold should allow for rapid payback of project capital.
The Cue project is in a part of the Murchison that is rich with gold processing infrastructure, with five operational mills within proximal distance.
These mills all present potential options for treating ore from Musgrave deposits.
Drilling is continuing at Starlight with a focus on infilling and extending the high-grade mineralised at depth, where it remains open.
Musgrave is also continuing to test for new lodes within the Break of Day/Lena mineralised corridor, with a third rig due to start drilling on its 100%-owned ground at Cue in mid-August.
The company signed an $18 million earn-in and joint venture agreement with Evolution Mining in September last year over a portion of its ground at Cue include Lake Austin.
Evolution must spend a minimum of $4 million in the first two years, and as part of that activity, the partners are undertaking a large aircore drilling program identifying and testing targets on Lake Austin.
Musgrave Minerals is presenting at the M+C Partners/Vertical Events Gold ‘n Brews Seminar.
RSVPs are required to attend this free event. To do so CLICK HERE.
