Kin Mining discovers ‘spectacular’ gold in Cardinia rock chips
Kin Mining identified 895g/t gold and 277g/t gold during rock chip sampling at Cardinia.
Rock chip sampling at Kin Mining’s (ASX: KIN) Cardinia gold project has unearthed up to 895 grams per tonne gold, in what Kin describes as a “spectacular” result.
During October, Kin collected 87 samples around historic workings within the WA-based project and outside the existing resource.
Of the 87 samples, 25% assayed above 5g/t gold.
The peak grades of 895g/t gold and 277g/t gold were found in samples uncovered at the Comedy King deposit.
Further high grade gold assays included 27g/t from Nevertire, 56.5g/t from Eagle, 22.8g/t from Black Chief South and 21.2g/t from Golden Dolerite.
According to Kin, the samples contained volcanogenic massive sulphide mineralisation with up to 5.86g/t silver found, 0.08% copper, 100 parts per million bismuth, 103ppm antimony, 463ppm tungsten and 0.14% zinc.
The samples were all extracted within 5km of the project’s processing plant, which underpins the ability to develop further high-grade deposits to extend the project’s life.
“The now widespread areas of high-grade gold mineralisation across a number of stratigraphic positions, enriched in base metals and other indicator minerals such as bismuth, antimony, tellurium and tungsten has led us to believe we are dealing with a significant, gold-rich VMS mineralised system in the Cardinia area,” Kin managing director Andrew Munckton said.
“This is a very encouraging step in our objective of identifying new deposits to enhance the mine plan for the Cardinia gold project.”
Mr Munckton added that gold-rich VMS deposits were highly-sought after because they offered one of the “highest-margin deposit styles”.
Kin is currently processing data from trial electromagnetic and induced polarisation surveys to identify high-grade mineralisation at Bruno-Lewis and Helens deposits.
The company said it would consider further surveys and drilling once it knows the outcome of the trials.
Cardinia gold project
Kin released a pre-feasibility study for Cardinia in August this year that estimates an initial 8.2-year operation.
The study predicts life-of-mine revenue of $809.8 million and surplus operating cashflow of $199.8 million based on a A$2,200/oz gold price.
Capital expenditure of $76.9 million is expected to develop two open pit mining centres to feed a 1.5Mtpa conventional carbon-in-leach processing plant at Cardinia.
Underpinning the operation is a reserve of 7.9Mt at 1.1g/t gold for 283,000oz.