Tunkillia poised for growth as Barton Gold wraps up drilling program

Barton Gold (ASX: BGD) (OTCQB: BGDFF) has wrapped up the drilling phase of a successful program aimed at growing its historic Tunkillia gold project in South Australia.

The company has already identified a number of significant opportunities to expand Tunkillia through the now-completed program.

Utilising three rigs in a campaign that began in late September, Barton and its drilling contractors completed more than 100 holes totaling around 17,700 metres of reverse circulation (RC) and approximately 2,900m of diamond drilling (DD) on 223 deposit extensions, satellite gold zones 223 North, Area 191 and Area 51, as well as the SE Offset target.

Significant new results

The company has already received significant new results from a priority RC and DD extension program completed in late October on the 223 deposit.

Assays from work at the northern and southern targets of the 223 deposit have identified new mineralisation potentially supporting growth of the main Tunkillia gold source.

These outcomes will be incorporated in an updated joint ore reserves committee (JORC) mineral resources estimate (MRE) for these areas, which will be released in the near future.

Broad mineralisation confirmed

Elsewhere, results from the 223 North target have confirmed broad mineralisation complementing prior shallow, high-grade intervals in earlier drilling.

Those results and assays from the Area 191 and Area 51 gold zones, along with the SE Offset target, are expected to be in hand by early 2024.

“Our team has done an exceptional job completing more than 20,000m RC and DD drilling at Tunkillia in only 14 weeks. We look forward to sharing further results soon, including JORC resources updates,” managing director Alex Scanlon said.

Growing the historic field

Highlight results of assays received from the 223 deposit in late November have already significantly extended the main producing area at Tunkillia, with around 300m of mineralised strike added near the southern end of the deposit.

A similar area of new strike was also confirmed by the recent drilling at the northern end of the 223 deposit.

Barton is currently undertaking an update of modelling of 223 following the identification of the new areas of strike at each end of the main gold-producing area.

New offset zone

The company is also particularly excited by an intersection of 55m at 1.52 grams per tonne of gold, which was drilled in a new zone offset from 223 deposit’s main strike.

Modelling will include the recently reported extensions of the 223 deposit’s mineralised strike along with all the new drilling information and the results of the updated JORC MRE.

That April 2023 upgrade for the 223 deposit estimated it holds 1.15 million ounces of gold, for 38 million tonnes at 0.94g/t.

Notably, the update confirmed the addition of 189,000oz of gold at a cost of only around $12 per oz.