Brightstar continues to deliver high-grade gold at Sandstone

Brightstar Resources fields more high-grade gold from RC drilling at near-term Sandstone production project in WA.

The company is aggressively drilling the project with its eye on a resource upgrade to support the pre-feasibility study underway. Pic: Getty Images.

• BTR records more high-grade gold from 291,000oz Lord Nelson gold deposit

• Deposit is part of 1.5Moz near-term producing project, the Sandstone Hub

• Drilling is ongoing with RC programs underway at the Indomitable Camp

 

Special Report: Brightstar Resources continues to expand the gold potential at its Sandstone project in WA with more high-grade results from RC drilling at the Lord Nelson, Havilah and Bull Oak deposits.

The company’s 2025 exploration strategy is to aggressively drill out the historically underexplored 1.5Moz for 1.5g/t Sandstone project, targeting a resource upgrade in 2H 2025 including maiden ore reserves to support a pre-feasibility study.

Brightstar Resources (ASX:BTR) aims to get the project into production asap, with first gold anticipated as soon as 2028.

The latest ~3,800m RC drilling program at Lord Nelson was aimed at infilling inside the conceptual pit shell (optimised at a gold price of A$2,500/oz), to upgrade the resource classification to indicated.

Best assays from Lord Nelson include:

• 32m at 3.44g/t gold from 200m, including 17m at 5.44g/t from 215m;
• 18m at 2.50g/t from 236m, including 1m at 13.9g/t from 237m;
• 10m at 2.94g/t from 214m, including 2m at 5.79g/t from 221m; and
• 6m at 6.00g/t from 250m, including 1m at 24.0g/t from 252m.

Results from a 6-hole, 730m program at Havilah deposit include 3m at 11.4g/t gold from 129m, including 1m at 29.5g/t from 131m and confirm that the high-grade mineralisation remains open down-plunge for further follow up targeting resource growth.

And assay results from Bull Oak deposit include:

• 19m at 1.18g/t gold from 177m, including 1m at 10.1g/t from 192m, within a broader, unconstrained intercept of 106m at 0.6g/t from 134m; and
• 2m at 8.93g/t from 112m, including 1m at 13.7g/t from 112m, within a broader, unconstrained intercept of 167m at 0.59g/t from 11m.

Even more drilling on the cards

Drilling continues with an RC rig in action at the Indomitable Camp in Sandstone and results pending from a ~6,000m program at the Yunndaga deposit (Menzies Hub), completed by a second rig.

“At Lord Nelson, some of the widest, highest-grade intercepts at the deposit have been produced from the base of optimised pit shells, which bode well for possible future open pit mining operations,” BTR managing director Alex Rovira said.

“At Havilah, it is especially exciting to identify high-grade mineralisation, potentially representing new plunging shoots, completely untested by drilling at depth.

“Brightstar’s in-house technical team is continuing to piece together the geology and controls on mineralisation at the Bull Oak deposit, with significant high grades having been produced from this small program, within wide zones of low-grade mineralised granodiorite.

“Further geological work will seek to unlock the potential at this deposit, given the possible scale delivered from the granodiorite intrusions.

“It’s worth noting that there are a number of felsic intrusives in the Bull Oak camp that are completely untested with drilling, with our geology team working up exploration programs including geophysics and drilling programs to test these targets to continue to grow the Sandstone mineral resource base.”

Watch: Brightstar blasts the underground gold portal at Fish

Upcoming drilling will target depth extensions to the existing operating high-grade underground mines at Second Fortune and Fish.

This article was developed in collaboration with Brightstar Resources, a Stockhead advertiser at the time of publishing.

This article does not constitute financial product advice. You should consider obtaining independent advice before making any financial decisions.

Originally published as Brightstar continues to deliver high-grade gold at Sandstone