Northern Star Resources Limited is pleased to announce more high-grade drilling results at its Paulsens Gold Mine in WA. The latest results extend the known mineralisation at Paulsens’ Voyager 2 lode by 200m down plunge from the last resource shape. This high-grade mineralisation, which remains open at depth, will be included in future resource upgrades, potentially extending Paulsens’ mine life. The Voyager 1 lode has provided all the gold produced to date by Northern Star at Paulsens. But Northern Star has now established Voyager 2, which runs parallel and immediately adjacent to Voyager 1, as a significant part of the growing Paulsens resource inventory.

The initial development ore from Voyager 2 will be mined in the September Quarter, at which point the two lodes will be mined simultaneously for the first time, reducing capital development costs. Northern Star is now preparing a resource upgrade for Paulsens, which it expects to release in the September Quarter.  This will include the in-fill and resource definition drilling undertaken in the Voyager 2 lode since the March 2013 resource upgrade. It will also include a host of results from the Voyager 1 lode, where drilling recently returned grades of up to 184gpt from 100m below the previously known mineralisation.

Importantly, the new high-grade Voyager 2 intersection of 4.5m at 20.0gpt is the deepest intersection to date in the main mineralisation at Paulsens and is 250m vertically below the current production level, further highlighting the potential for increases in mine life. None of the latest results from Voyager 2 are included in the current 555,000-ounce1 resource estimate at Paulsens. Northern Star Managing Director Bill Beament said the latest results showed that Paulsens continued to go from strength to strength in every respect. “We continue to extend the known limits of the mineralisation at depth in both Voyager 1 and Voyager 2, setting us up for another resource upgrade. “The start of mining in Voyager 2 will deliver cost savings as well as flexibility and extended mine life, further underpinning our ability to continue paying strong fully-franked dividends. And we are hitting high-grade gold in the gabbro host rock which surrounds Paulsens and was long-thought to be unmineralised.”