Kaiser Reef Ltd (ASX:KAU, ASX:) has started infill drill planning and early-stage engineering work at the Union Hill gold mine within its Maldon Gold Project in Victoria, following the delivery of a first-stage resource estimate and exploration target in July.
This engineering work will be used for the scoping and other technical/planning studies for the potential development of a second gold mining operation at Maldon.
Continued exploration and infill drilling targeting increasing the resource size and confidence are also proposed and will be initiated following the results obtained from the engineering work.
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Kaiser managing director Jonathan Downes said: “We are pleased with the successful work to date up at the A1 Mine and see strong future potential.
“We are encouraged that the Union Hill Mine has the potential to become a valuable second producing asset within an expanded Kaiser portfolio.
“The aim of this recently commenced work programme at Union Hill is based on a clearly defined runway to increasing long term production and profitability."
Kaiser’s wholly owned Union Hill Mine, located between Ballarat and Bendigo has highly supportive development characteristics that would be difficult and slow to reproduce, including:
- granted mining licence
- proximity to nearby wholly owned and under capacity gold processing plant
- current mining permits
- existing decline, power and ventilation
- defined open ended resources
- 1.2 Mt at 4.4 g/t gold (Inferred) for 186,656 ounces of gold; and
- 1.75 to 2.7Mt at between 3 g/t gold and 4 g/t gold Exploration Target (NYSE:TGT) for between 165,000 ounces of gold to 345,000 ounces of gold
- open ended mineralisation
Potential to be the next significant Victorian gold mine
Kaiser believes that the Union Hill Mine has the potential to be the next significant gold mine to come online in Victoria.
The preliminary engineering and drill planning has identified that future work required will comprise of drill planning, second egress planning, power and ventilation upgrade investigations/planning and various other work, as required.
“An extraordinarily strong advantage”
Downes added: “We are now turning greater attention to the first stage of studies required to bring the Union Hill Mine into complementary production.
“We have an extraordinarily strong advantage already established at this site to bring on the next significant high grade Victorian gold mine.
“Maldon has historically produced 2.1M oz at 28 g/t gold.
“Within the upper levels we have recently defined substantial lodes of mineralisation, as released on 21 July 2022.
“This is a substantial initial inventory but the strong potential for defining more ore is supported by the open-ended mineralisation at depth and the Target Resource.”