A drilling campaign conducted during October has strengthened the geological credentials of Astral Resources NL’s Mandilla flagship gold project some 70 kilometres south of Western Australia’s nickel capital of Kambalda.
The results also consolidate the junior’s Goldfields holdings as it pushes forward with its growing Feysville target to the north.
As it stands, the ASX-listed explorer has already established a mineral resource estimate (MRE) at Mandilla of 37 million tonnes at 1.1 grams/t for 1.27Moz of contained yellow metal.
During the September quarter, Astral completed a 70-hole, 6,512-metre in-fill RC drill program at the project’s Theia deposit.
According to the company, the purpose of the exercise was to in-fill the stage one and two pits to a drill density of about 40 by 20m with a view to upgrading the inferred mineral resources, as envisaged in a scoping study completed in September 2023, to the indicated category.
Best gold assay results were 8m at 1.82g/t from 29m and 33m at 1.82g/t from 64m (with 2m at 25.9g/t from 90m), 10m at 5.33g/t from 38m (including 1m at 37.5g/t from 43m), 6m at 1.74g/t from 70m, 18m at 2.54g/t from 84m (containing 1m at 24.8g/t from 93m), 7m at 0.7g/t from 44m and 19m at 2.12g/t in the same hole from 67m (with 1m at 19.5g/t from 71m and 1m at 14.8g/t from 78m respectively), 17m at 0.73g/t from 40m and 14m at 1.64g/t from 83m (again in the same hole), 1m at 12.5g/t from 84m, 29m at 0.67g/t from 25m and 17m at 1.37g/t from 64m (again in the same hole), 1m at 14.9g/t from 80m, 1m at 223g/t from 15m, 1m at 21.3g/t from 12m and, in the same hole, 22m at 0.53g/t from 60m.
Of the 70 RC holes drilled, four represent pre-collars for a forthcoming program of four diamond tail infill tests for 1,600m.
According to Astral, the results from the RC program were highly encouraging, with assay numbers broadly consistent with logged quartz/sulphide zones within the current resource model.
“Only minor refinement will be necessary for an updated MRE and no major changes to tonnage or grade are expected,” the junior told the market.
“This confirms the consistency and robustness of the Theia deposit as tighter-spaced drilling more accurately delineates the geometry and orientation of mineralisation.”
Astral is also currently “contemporaneously focused” on exploration activities at its Feysville gold project, which sits 14km south of the Super Pit in Kalgoorlie-Boulder.
Here, the MRE is 3Mt at 1.3g/t for 116,000oz of contained gold.
Earlier this year the company released a number of assay results from Feysville’s Rogan Josh RC program completed during the previous quarter, with best numbers including 8m at 1.35g/t from 55m, 8m at 1.28g/t from 43m, 5m at 1.79g/t from 32m, 3m at 1.89g/t from 57m, 4m at 1.31g/t from 54m, 4m at 1.57g/t from 48m, 12m at 0.72g/t from 13m and 2m at 1.28g/t from 54m.
Euroz Hartleys (EH) analyst Kyle De Souza said these results were in line with the broker’s expectations, leading it to update its numbers by removing 4.5Mt of 0.7g/t material from Mandilla in the first five years and replacing it with higher grade Feysville ore.
Feysville added a second mining area for inclusion into the prefeasibility study due in the first half of 2025, which was expected to de-risk production ramp-up.
In turn, this would increase cash flow at the front end of the mine life, and subsequently have a material effect on EH’s discounted cash flow and net present value of 2 per cent valuation in a positive direction.
De Souza said there were only three open pit gold development projects on the ASX which were on granted mining leases that could produce over 100,000 ozpa, and Astral was one of them.
“The majority of the ore is coming from what is the single largest open-pit deposit in Kalgoorlie that is not held by a major (namely the Super Pit and Red Hill which are both owned by Northern Star Resources Ltd) – it’s called Theia and it has a resource of 29Mt at 1.1g/t for 1.02Moz,” De Souza said.
