JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – Recent drilling at Havilah Resources has confirmed a primary gold mineralised system, with “excellent” prospects for expansion of its current Portia operation into a large, long-life mining operation.

This will require reworking of the current mine design, which holds 20 000 t at a grade of 2.9 g/t, for 67 000 oz, and the longer-term mine plans going forward to ensure the full potential of the Portia gold deposit, in South Australia, is unlocked.

It will also require securing the appropriate approvals from the Department for State Development for expansion of the mining operation.

High-grade bedrock gold drilling intersections from southern extensions included 6 m at 53.6 g/t, as well as 13 m at 8.4 g/t.

The base of tertiary gold mineralisation averaged 12.2 g/t over 2 m thickness in southern extensions, while the primary vein/replacement style bedrock gold mineralisation system was confirmed in the pit floor.

Havilah MD Dr Chris Giles said that while the company had always suspected, on geological grounds, that Portia harboured “something much larger at depth”, it was satisfying to have the indicative physical evidence.

“We are very familiar with the vein/replacement style of mineralisation we are now seeing exposed at Portia, from Kalkaroo and many other prospects we have drilled in the region. Experience tells us that such mineralised systems tend to be wide and strike and depth persistent,” he noted.

Havilah’s aim is, therefore, a large gold deposit where the high-grade gold zones are surrounded by a background of lower grade gold mineralisation, that overall presents a likely economic bedrock mining proposition.

“Given we now have a much clearer picture from mine exposures, our forward drill targeting can be more precisely directed. We plan to do a lot more diamond drilling, that do date we have not had the opportunity of undertaking, owing to financial constraints.

“Even at this early stage, it is now clear that our modest Portia resource initial short mine life openpit will require extensive revision as we transition Portia towards a long-life gold mining operation,” Giles added.