Bardoc Gold shores up underground potential at Zoroastrian with latest high-grade results

Bardoc Gold (ASX: BDC) has shored up the underground potential of the Zoroastrian deposit with latest diamond drilling unearthing up to 65.5 grams per tonne gold.

The company has received assays from the first three infill diamond drill holes at Zoroastrian, which it claims reveal the continuity of high-grade mineralisation outside of the recently published ore reserve.

Highlight assays from these holes were 7.3m at 21.21g/t gold from 292.57m; 13.3m at 6.38g/t gold from 144m, including 1m at 65.5g/t gold from 151m; and 6.7m at 7.85g/t gold from 162m.

“Yet again we see broad high-grade mineralisation at Zoroastrian, proving the outstanding potential of expanding on the current mining reserve,” Bardoc chief executive officer Robert Ryan said.

“It is also pleasing to note the consistency of the high-grade mineralisation within the standout intercept of 7.3m at 21.21g/t gold in KND200002, which supports our view that Zoroastrian has the potential to grow well outside of the current resource and reserve once the mine begins production,” he added.

Bardoc gold project

Zoroastrian forms past of Bardoc’s namesake 3.02 million ounce gold project about 40km north of Kalgoorlie in Western Australia and encompassing 250 square kilometres of tenements.

All up, six diamond holes totalling 2,138m were drilled at Zoroastrian to gather data to enable potential conversion to reserves.

Zoroastrian has a current underground probable ore reserve of 810,000t at 3.2g/t gold for 80,000oz, and an open pit reserve of 350,000t at 1.9g/t gold for 20,000oz, while open pit and underground resources for the deposit total 7.1Mt at 2.3g/t gold for 515,000oz.

Mr Ryan said following the “outstanding” pre-feasibility study results released last month, Bardoc plans to complete a definitive feasibility study over the remainder of this year, with key industry specialists already engaged.

Based on an A$2,100/oz gold price, the pre-feasibility study estimates life of mine revenue of $1.9 billion over 7.8 years based on 1.02Moz in reserves and resources.

The production rate is estimated at 1.8Mtpa sourcing ore from both open pit and underground deposits at the project.

Total gold recovered is expected to be 951,000oz – equating to about 135,000ozpa.

To get the project up and running capital expenditure of $142.4 million has been calculated.

Global resources across Bardoc total 49.426Mt at 1.9g/t gold for 3.02Moz.

Shares in Bardoc were up almost 11% to $0.071 in early morning trade.