PERTH (miningweekly.com) – ASX-listed gold miner Northern Star will spend between A$15-million and A$20-million on exploration and drilling activities at its newly acquired Pogo project, in Alaska.
The company on Tuesday reported a Joint Ore Reserves Committee- (Jorc-) compliant resource of 8.8-million tonnes, grading 14.7 g/t gold for 4.15-million ounces of gold at Pogo.
This was in line with the previously reported non-Jorc resource estimate of 4.1-million ounces at 12.2 g/t gold, which included 765 000 oz in satellite deposits external to the main Pogo mine.
Northern Star told shareholders that these satellite deposits have not been included in the new resource estimate.
Northern Star MD Bill Beament said that after assuming control of the project, the company’s focus now was to move to resource definition and extensional drilling.
Beament said that there were eight diamond drilling rigs currently operating at Pogo, with four of these rigs operating underground, and focusing on resource definition drilling in the North zone and Leise vein system, as well as targeting resource extensions within the Fun zone.
The remaining four diamond drill rigs are on surface exploring new lateral and downdip extensions to the main Leise vein system, adjacent to the Fun zone production area.