Brought to you by BULLS N’ BEARS
Andrew Todd
Zenith Minerals has pulled off a blockbuster resource upgrade at its Dulcie gold project in WA, more than doubling the inventory in a single drill campaign to 675,000 ounces at the rapidly expanding project.
The company’s inferred resource now weighs in at a hefty 21.3 million tonnes grading 1 gram per tonne (g/t) gold for 675,000 ounces, sitting across roughly six kilometres of strike on granted mining leases in Western Australia’s Southern Cross–Forrestania gold belt.
The estimate has stitched together three areas – Dulcie, Dulcie North and Dulcie Far North – into a single consolidated project, replacing the previous exploration target with a hard-number resource base likely to grow with follow-up drilling assaults.
At the heart of the upgrade is a maiden resource at the Dulcie mining lease, having delivered 9.8 million tonnes at 1g/t gold for 300,000 ounces. Dulcie North chipped in a further 75,000 ounces from 2.8 million tonnes grading 0.9g/t gold, while the updated Dulcie Far North resource has remained at 300,000 ounces from 8.7 million tonnes at a slightly punchier 1.1g/t gold.
‘This Mineral Resource more than doubles the contained gold previously defined.’
Zenith Minerals managing director Andrew Smith
Importantly, this latest estimate more than doubles the existing gold tally at Dulcie Far North, delivered with an impressively efficient drilling blitz that ran from July through to November last year.
Zenith completed 82 reverse circulation (RC) holes over the period, targeting stacked shallow-dipping lodes reflecting the geometry already proven at its northern leases.
The lodes are shaping up as an open-cut mining prize, with more than 10 stacked mineralised horizons now confirmed by the company across a broad, ductile shear zone extending for kilometres and open along strike and at depth.
Another major tick for the company is its tenure. Every single ounce of its 675,000 resource sits on granted mining leases, giving Zenith the flexibility to fast-track Dulcie into production without getting bogged down in lengthy regulatory rigmarole.
Zenith Minerals managing director Andrew Smith said: “This Mineral Resource more than doubles the contained gold previously defined at DFN and establishes genuine scale across the Consolidated Dulcie Gold Project. Importantly, the entire 675,000-ounce Inferred Resource sits on granted Mining Leases.”
The scale at Dulcie is fast becoming evident. At a 0.5g/t gold cut-off, the resource appears well-suited to a low-cost, open-pit mining style, which would hold up comfortably in today’s buoyant gold price environment.
Zenith’s stacked lodes are only just being scratched near the surface, with management confident the gold will remain continuous down dip for some way.
Hot on the heels of a recently completed $7.65 million premium-priced placement to strategic investors and with no debt, Zenith is wasting little time moving into the next phase.
The company says its next RC drilling program is set to kick off in April to infill the southern Dulcie corridor and sniff out higher-grade targets within the stacked lode system.
A few diamond holes will gather the important technical data for follow-up mining studies, including structural and metallurgical data needed to underpin mine design and scoping-level studies.
Management has already rolled up its sleeves at the desk, kicking off early feasibility studies to scope staged open-pit mining and, importantly, capital-light processing routes, including ore sales and toll treatment. To that point, the project conveniently lies within handy trucking distance of several operating processing hubs, such as the Marvel Loch plant just 40km away and the Edna May gold mine.
For Zenith, the message is becoming clear. Dulcie is no longer a potential gold story in the prolific Southern Cross greenstones. It now has the size, tenure and ounces to start talking seriously about standalone development, with plenty of blue-sky still left in the system.
Is your ASX-listed company doing something interesting? Contact: mattbirney@bullsnbears.com.au
