Kula Gold has nailed good gold results from a stage two drilling program at the company’s old Mt Palmer gold mine, 40 kilometres southeast of Southern Cross in the Western Australian goldfields. The company has revealed a best hit of 18 metres at 4.7 grams per tonne (g/t) gold from surface, including 3m at 23.4g/t gold.
Other results from the program include 6m assaying 8.1g/t gold from surface, including 3m at 15.3g/t gold, 12m running 2.3g/t gold from 15m, including 6m going 3.5g/t gold and a 9m hit at 1.9g/t gold from surface, including 3m grading 3g/t gold.
These are exceptional results from Kula’s Mt Palmer gold project and are starting to show the real potential that our team saw in this asset. A few shallow intersections of high-grade results over half an ounce of gold per tonne are just what we needed to see at this early stage of exploration.
The company is exploring its 80 per cent-owned historic Mt Palmer gold mine, which it holds in a joint venture with Aurumin Limited. Old records point to about 150,000 ounces of gold at about 15.9g/t gold produced by the mine from 1934 to 1944, before a World War II labour and materials shortage forced the mine to close.
Subsequent mine flooding discouraged re-opening of the operation and it has been all but dormant, with little further exploration. Five diamond holes were put into the old workings by third parties since mine closure, but none of the core can be located.
Kula picked up the cudgel last October, sinking two triple-tube HQ3 holes into the old show to acquire structural data and hopefully get a peek at the riches that the old mine records indicated could lie at depth.
The company’s detailed structural analysis has allowed it to identify the location and plunge extensions of the ultra-rich gold seams mined historically.
Management figures there should be a good chance to discover potential ore extensions in the old workings and also new opportunities to locate new mineralisation at depth, perhaps laterally and along strike.
Kula’s channel sampling of old mine dumps around the mine produced 146 samples that averaged 1.7g/t gold and a peak result of 17.9g/t gold, with an average grade from all of the samples of 1.7g/t gold.
The sampling has revealed a high degree of grade variation, with commonly found high grades pointing to nuggety gold that could have potential for simple low-cost extraction.
The results have prompted Kula to conduct further detailed sampling to extend the program across all the old mine dumps on the property. The company will survey the dump volumes to get a handle on their combined gold content and explore possible gravity extraction of coarse gold, which could offer almost immediate cash flow.
Kula is also looking at a low-cost, shallow drilling program to evaluate the historic mine’s old tailing which, in the event of a successful outcome, could lead to other metallurgical testwork to see if the tailings sands could be treated at the nearby Marvel Loch gold plant.
It is early days since Kula acquired its first interest in Mt Palmer only 10 months ago. The company has already made a solid-gold start significant enough for it to see a clear exploration path, which is also perfectly timed to take advantage of the current heady gold price environment.
Is your ASX-listed company doing something interesting? Contact: matt.birney@wanews.com.au
