Kairos Minerals starts drilling at greenfield prospect in large Pilbara gold project

Kairos Minerals (ASX: KAI) has begun a 5,000m reverse circulation (RC) drilling program at its growing Pilbara gold project in Western Australia.

Drilling is now underway at what the company calls the “exciting” Fuego prospect with the Mt York prospect to follow.

This is part of a large 2020 exploration program that includes soil and rock chip sampling, mapping, airborne magnetic and radiometric surveys, sub-audio magnet surveys as well as RC drilling.

The RC drill program will include about 12 RC holes to depths of up to 270m and is designed to test what is an extensive gold anomaly. Fuego is part of the company’s Croydon project, part of Kairos’ 100%-owned larger Pilbara gold ground.

Drilling at Fuego will take between two to three weeks while drill pad preparations are completed at Mt York.

Kairos executive chairman Terry Topping said due to logistical considerations including timing of heritage clearances and drill pad preparation, it has been decided to begin drilling at Fuego rather than previously-advised Mt York.

The first target for the drilling rig was meant to be the Mt York deposit, testing for a northwest extension of mineralisation. Only one historical hole has been carried out at the part of this target that lies within Kairos’ ground. But now the greenfield Fuego prospect will lead off.

“This means we get to test this exciting greenfield target first up in the program, which is a really exciting development,” Mr Topping said.

“We will remain extremely flexible in our approach, depending on how the program evolves,” he added.

Brownfield target will be second target to be drilled

By contrast, Mt York is a brownfield target. It was mined between 1994 and 1998 when there was an average gold price of US$350 per ounce. Some 125,493oz were extracted at an average grade of 1.85g/t gold.

The drilling there will test extensions at the Mt York site itself, along with Iron Stirrup and Old Faithful deposits within that project area.

The Pilbara project area is about 100km south of Port Hedland and since acquiring it in early 2016, Kairos has established a JORC indicated and inferred resource of 20.93 million tonnes at an average 1.3g/t gold for a contained 873,000oz.

Kairos regards its 1,236sq km project as being in the “epicentre” of the present-day Pilbara gold rush.

With the recent closure of a $4.2 million capital raising, Kairos is fully funded for its upcoming exploration activities.