Mandalay Resources Corp. provided an update on the Eastern Plunge extension drilling and significant intercepts from the Aurora Upper extension program at its 100%-owned Bjorkdal operation in Sweden.
New Drilling Highlights: At the Eastern Plunge Extension, drill hole MU22-032 returned 783.0 g/t gold over 0.35 metres (Estimated True Width “ETW” 0.25 m) in MU22-032; 104.7 g/t gold over 1.00 metres (ETW 0.87 m) in MU22-031; and 22.7 g/t gold over 3.90 metres (ETW 3.19 m) in MU22-029.
At the Aurora Extension, MU22-027 returned 89.5 g/t gold over 0.30 metres (ETW 0.23 m); 2.9 g/t gold over 3.50 metres (ETW 3.05 m); and 36.0 g/t gold over 0.30 metres (ETW 0.15 m) in ME22-004.
Dominic Duffy, President and CEO of Mandalay, commented: “Bjorkdal is a high tonnage and low-grade gold mine with the potential for significant profit growth at relatively small increases to mined gold grades.
To this end, a major focus of our near mine exploration program was to identify areas of higher grades that can be prioritized within our short to medium term mining schedules.
Excitingly, these consistent drill results from the Eastern Plunge Extension program are exceeding our expectations by producing highly significant grades the likes of which we would consider exceptional at our high-grade Costerfield mine in Australia.
“The impact of this program has flowed through and upgraded Bjorkdal’s recently announced year-end 2022 Mineral Resources and Reserves estimate with an 11% lift to Mineral Reserves’ gold grade from 1.39 g/t to 1.54 g/t for the 11.6 million tonnes in Proven and Probable Reserves.
“As the Eastern Plunge Extension drilling is still in its infancy and currently there is little access to drill further east and down plunge, we do not know how far this significant grade increase will continue.
However, to date the Eastern Plunge drilling is completely open to the East and Down Plunge. We will continue to drill this area over the remainder of 2023 to try and establish the continuation of this area and the impact it will have on the long term operations at Bjorkdal.
The mining permit extension which will allow for mining in this area is currently being processed by the authorities and we expect the permit to be issued in 2023.
“Further to the successes of the Eastern Plunge Extension, the Aurora system has been tested successfully approximately 150 metres up dip and to the east from current and scheduled mining.
Not only is Aurora itself and the surrounding veining continuous, but significant grades comparable to the core of system have been identified within the veining. This extension is encouraging as Aurora has been, and is currently, the main source of bulk ore tonnage at Bjorkdal.
“We look forward to providing further updates on these projects throughout the year as well as the developments from our North Zone Extension drilling and the Aurora Depth Extension drilling, which are both currently ongoing.”
During the second half of 2022 near mine exploration was focused on exploring the eastern plunge extension of the main and central zones, the upwards eastern extension of Aurora, the depth extension of the Aurora system and the further delineation and extension of North Zone.
The latter two programs investigating the depth of Aurora and North Zone are still underway and are not discussed within this release.
Current underground drilling locations do not provide support for further extension of the eastern plunge extension; however, mining is now scheduled for the area and once more appropriate drilling horizons have been developed extension drilling will continue to further explore this potential. As the interpretation stands the veining remains open at depth.
There is no current indication that grades will curtail down the mineral plunge to the east at Bjorkdal.
The expectation that the Aurora system continues up-dip and to the east is something that needs further testing.
Exploration is also currently ongoing on the extension of the veining in North Zone and the depth extension of the Aurora System below the Marble Horizon. An update on this drilling is expected in Q2 2023 once the current extension program is complete, Resource World writes.
