Focus Minerals (ASX:FML) has upgraded its Brilliant deposit in Coolgardie, resulting in a 26% increase in total resource to 5.89 million tonnes at 2.5 g/t gold for 475,500 ounces of contained gold.
The Brilliant Project is a historical gold deposit which forms part of the company’s tenement portfolio in the highly prospective Coolgardie region of Western Australia.
The deposit was a major open pit gold producer, mined in stages from 1970’s to early 2000’s with total production of circa 88,000 ounces of gold at an average grade of 2.45 g/t gold.
Since the start of 2017, Focus has been conducting an aggressive near-mine exploration program around the Brilliant deposit.
The company has completed 26 reverse circulation holes (5,950 metres) and seven diamond drill holes (2,656.8 metres) till the end of March 2017.
The purpose of this drilling was to further infill and expand the previous mineral resource as well as explore additional lode mineralisation in the vicinity of the open pit.
Encouraging results have been returned from all drill areas and drilling is ongoing to further define mineralisation in these areas with the intent of adding to the mineral resource.
The preliminary feasibility study for the Coolgardie Project is progressing well, and is due for completion in early June.