Shares in Australian gold group Bullabulling (LON:BGL, ASX:BAB) rallied on good assays from the potentially higher grade areas at its open pit gold project in Western Australia.
The company said the drill results showed "high potential" for expanding resources at Edwards and Gryphon, which currently have a grade approximately 30% above the project average.
This would provide additional higher grade mill feed in the early years of the proposed mining operation.
“Furthermore, drilling suggests continuity of mineralisation between Edwards and Gryphon that may enable development of a single open pit which management expect would improve mining efficiency and reduce costs.”
Best holes from the latest drilling at Gryphon included six metres at 11.74 grams per tonne (g/t), including two metres at 29.08 g/t, and 12 metres at 2.36 g/t.
"These holes extend the strongly mineralised core of the Gryphon prospect further down-dip and confirm that mineralisation remains open at depth," said Bullabulling.
At Edwards, best holes were five metres (m) at 2.68 g/t gold, 3m at 5.53 g/t and 4m at 11.42 g/t gold.
The group added that the potential amalgamation of the proposed Edwards and Gryphon pits was strongly supported by hole BJ4931, which returned 12 metres at 5.35 g/t, including three metres at 13.47 g/t, from within the corridor between the two prospects.
The group cautioned, however, that some recent holes, particularly on the up-dip margin of the corridor, failed to intersect significant grade mineralisation.
The completed programme comprised 5,421 metres in 37 reverse circulation holes covering 1.3 kilometres of strike on the southern portion of Bullabulling Trend.
Assays for five holes remain outstanding and on receipt of these the resource model for the Edwards-Gryphon portion of the Bullabulling Trend will be included in the first phase of the definitive feasibility study.
The Bullabulling Trend can be traced for over six kilometres of strike.
Edwards and Gryphon make up two of the project’s five potential mining areas and together account for 2.2mln tonnes grading 1.14 grams per tonne (g/t) or 81,000 ounces of contained gold.
Overall, the Bullabulling project currently has a 3.2mln ounce resource at an overall grade of 0.96 g/t.
Shares rose 9% to 3.82p.