Western Australian gold explorer Focus Minerals (ASX: FML) has announce the first JORC 2012 Mineral Resource for the Beasley Creek deposit, which will form a key part of the proposed production pipeline for Stage 1 of the Laverton Gold Project.
The Beasley Creek JORC 2012 Open Pit Mineral Resource is reported above 270mRL (to 180m below surface) using a 0.8g/t Au cut-off grade and comprises:
· Indicated Resource: 2.02 Mt @ 2.41 g/t Au for 156,500 contained ounces
· Inferred Resource: 0.64 Mt @ 1.71 g/t Au for 35,400 contained ounces
· Total Resource: 2.66 Mt @ 2.24 g/t Au for 191,900 contained ounces The Mineral Resource is reported on a dry tonnage basis.
Beasley Creek is one of several significant deposits and prospects across Focus’ Laverton Gold Project, which covers a 507 square kilometre parcel of highly prospective tenements on the outskirts of the Laverton township, in Western Australia’s north-eastern Goldfields. Focus’ JORC 2012 Mineral Resource for Beasley Creek was compiled using a total of 275 drill holes.
These holes comprised 168 reverse circulation (RC), 80 diamond and 27 diamond-with-RC collars holes. A majority of the holes were drilled in 2018 and 2019. In addition, Focus submitted two metallurgical samples for leaching in 2019.
The test work confirmed historically reported favourable leach characteristics of the Beasley Creek mineralisation, delivering ≥92% leach in two hours and with only low reagent consumption.
Commenting on the first JORC 2012 Mineral Resource for Beasley Creek, Focus Minerals’ CEO, Mr Zhaoya Wang, said: “The JORC 2012 Indicated Resource and promising metallurgical testing results at Beasley Creek could potentially deliver a low start-up cost asset, which would lay a solid foundation to Focus’ Laverton production strategy as the Stage 1 of our production pipeline starts to take shape.
“Focus is continuing its exploration efforts across our Laverton Gold Project area as we work towards establishing a resource to underpin a Stage 1, life-of-mine production profile of at least five years.
“I look forward to updating shareholders about our next steps and successes.”
Future drilling programmes, test works and studies are planned to take place across the Laverton Gold Project in Q4 2019 and Q1 2020.
