Continues To Expand Historic Misima Mine In PNG
Kingston Resources Limited (ASX: KSN) has obtained significant new results from ongoing Resource drilling at Kulumalia, located at the southern end of the main Umuna orebody at its flagship 3.6Moz Misima Gold Project in Papua New Guinea.
Recent drilling has returned multiple wide mineralised intercepts outside of the Reserve pit shell, increasing geological confidence in the existing Resource and Reserve models while also delineating new mineralisation beneath the current life-of-mine plan.
These strong results follow on from previously-reported drill results at Kulumalia, which included shallow, high-grade mineralised intercepts. Best intercepts from the previously- reported results included:
- 10.7m @ 1.34g/t Au & 8.1g/t Ag from 44m 14.2m @ 1.61g/t Au and 4.0g/t Ag from 146.8m;
- 7m @ 1.14g/t Au & 15.7g/t Ag from 54.7m 9.8m @ 0.76g/t Au & 0.4g/t Ag from 170m;
- 3.8m @ 2.42g/t Au & 1.5g/t Ag from 183.8m ;
- 9.1m @ 1.6g/t Au & 10.5g/t Ag from 194.9m;
- 22.4m @ 0.99g/t Au & 27.8g/t Ag from 212m; and
- 6m @ 1.57g/t Au & 42.3g/t Ag from 119m
The drilling results from Kulumalia are part of an ongoing 8,000m drilling campaign designed to in-fill and upgrade the existing Inferred Resource as well as test depth extensions and confirm historical drill intercepts.
Managing Director, Andrew Corbett, said that encouragingly, the results have continued to deliver some particularly high silver grades in the central Kulumalia area, within the current mine plan. These results are expected to enhance the potential economic contribution of mining the Kulumalia area within the Umuna Pit.
Significantly, mineralisation at Kulumalia has also been identified below the current life-of-mine plans but still at relatively shallow depths.
Mr Corbett said these results are encouraging as they point to the potential for additional mineable material in this area of the Umuna Pit, which would have potential positive implications for the economics of the project.
Following completion of the drill programme, assay results will feed into an updated Ore Reserve estimate for the Misima Gold Project, which is expected to be delivered during Q3 this year.
“This latest round of assay results at Kulumalia builds on the encouraging results released in March. This area is shaping up to be an important component of Kingston’s development strategy for Misima,” Mr Corbett said.
“It is particularly pleasing to see some of the deeper holes drilled at Kulumalia to date returning high-grade mineralised intervals. This shows that gold mineralisation continues at depth in fresh rock and confirms that Kulumalia is more than just a source of shallow oxide ore – it is an extremely well-mineralised component of the main Umuna trend.
“Kingston’s geology team is doing a great job de-risking the project and adding value to the proposed mine production plan, which will ultimately help to strengthen Misima’s credentials as a long-life, low-cost gold operation.”
