Northern Star plans Resource upgrade for Ashburton project
THE DRILL SERGEANT: Northern Star Resources (ASX: NST) is gearing up for the release of, what the company described as, a significant resource upgrade at its Ashburton gold project in Western Australia.
The upgrade is expected after the company received a recent raft of drilling results it says support its plan to make the Ashburton project its second 100,000 ounce per annum stand-alone operation.
Recent drilling results have returned:
– 48 metres at 6.0 grams per tonne gold, including 24 metres at 8.6 grams per tonne gold;
– 18.5m at 8.5g/t gold, including 10.7m at 11.9g/t gold;
– 19.9m at 7.2g/t gold, including 10.5m at 7.2g/t gold;
– 18.8m at 5.4g/t gold;
– 20m at 4.9g/t gold;
– 13.1m at 7.0g/t gold; and
– 6.4m at 14.1g/t gold, including 2m at 40.8 g/t gold.
The results from the Mt Olympus deposit, situated within the Ashburton project.
Mt Olympus Surface drilling, plan view. Source: Company announcement
Northern Star will include these in the resource upgrade currently being calculated and anticipated for release this quarter.
“These intersections show that the Ashburton inventory is growing virtually by the drill hole and is set to increase substantially from the already-significant level of one million ounces,” Northern Star managing director Bill Beament said in the company’s announcement to the Australian Securities Exchange.
“The results also highlight the significant prospectivity of our extensive land holding, which now boasts two key parallel structures, each of which is 200 kilometres long.”
The Ashburton project has a current resource of one million ounces, including 689,000 ounces in the sulphide deposits.
Metallurgical testwork of the sulphide mineralisation last year generated total gold recoveries of 80 to 90 per cent.
A recently-completed plant upgrade at Northern Star’s Paulsens gold project lifted production to plus-100,000 ounces per annum.
Northern Star said the inclusion of the Ashburton project stands to double the company’s gold output.
“With the plant upgrade at Paulsens complete and the cashflow from that project running strongly, we are confident that the rewards of our $20 million exploration/drilling program will be rich in 2013,” Beament said.
Northern Star recently announced a deal to acquire the non-iron ore mineral rights over key tracts of highly prospective acreage around Paulsens from Fortescue Metals Group (ASX: FMG).
The deal gives Northern Star a 7000square kilometre tenement package of land stretching from Paulsens to the Mt Olympus deposit, approx. 200km away.
Northern Star now has approx. 400km of strike along two parallel structures with Paulsens and Mt Olympus situated at either end.
Many of the Fortescue tenements on this structure sit immediately along strike to the known mineralisation at Paulsens, Mt Olympus and Electric Dingo.