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Blackham Resources' drilling confirms high-grade gold zones, Williamson deposit extended

Last updated: 12:41 29 Mar 2019 AEDT, First published: 11:55 29 Mar 2019 AEDT

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Lake Way Williamson deposit is 18 kilometres south of Blackham’s Wiluna gold plant

Blackham Resources Ltd's (ASX:BLK) latest results from drilling undertaken from December 2018 to February 2019 have confirmed high-grade zones and increased the width of the Lake Way Williamson deposit, which is south of the company's Wiluna plant in WA.

The drilling comprised 46 reverse circulation (RC) holes for 6,331 metres and nine diamond drill holes for 1,362 metres.

First assay results were received on March 7, 2019, with results from the last seven RC holes now received.

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Blackham's executive chairman Milan Jerkovic said: “These ongoing successful drilling results further confirm the opportunity for the Williamson Gold Mine to provide an ongoing baseload of high margin free milling ore as Blackham seeks to maximise the margins generated from its 1.3-million-ounce free milling resource base.

“Over the next 18 months, Blackham plans to transition to the initial stage of its sulphide expansion of 100-120,000 ounces per annum as an interim step to achieving about 250,000 ounces per annum production rate and turning Wiluna back into a multi-cycle gold operation.”

Results from the last seven holes include:

  • 84 metres at 2.35 g/t from 84 metres, including 9 metres at 7.32 g/t, and another 11 metres at 7.73 g/t from 188 metres;
  • 41 metres at 1.25 g/t from 117 metres, including 2 metres at 8.54 g/t;
  • 22 metres at 1.59 g/t from 153 metres; and
  • 29 metres at 1.03 g/t from 137 metres, including 1-metre at 6.35 g/t.

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The Williamson Mine has a resource of 5.6 million tonnes at 1.7 g/t for 298,000 ounces of gold over 2.2 kilometres of strike.

An open pit reserve of 950,000 tonnes at 2.2 g/t for 68,000 ounces is contained in a cutback on the southern half of the existing Williamson pit.

Infill drilling has been completed over 1-kilometre of strike and has reinforced the potentially economic tenor of mineralisation up to 500 metres south of the reserve pit design.

Results suggest the potential for a significantly extended pit length and demonstrate that once the Williamson resource model and open pit mine design are updated, there is potential for a significantly extended mining strike length.

 Latest intersections confirm the strike extension of a large system south of the existing pit.

The Williamson pit produced over 40,000 ounces at 2 g/t from two years of mining in 2005 and 2006.

The latest results confirm wider mineralisation zones than the current resource model both within and below the existing reserve pit design and are likely to improve the economics of the planned pit.

Future drilling will target further pit expansion and underground extraction.

Mining of the Williamson pit is scheduled to begin in the September quarter of 2019, with open pit mine designs to follow.

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