Blackham Resources Ltd. (ASX:BLK) today reported excellent metallurgical results on their past-producing Matilda project in the Wiluna gold belt. The combined gravity and leaching test work has resulted in an average recovery rate of 87% (92% for oxide ore, 82% for sulphide ore). As these are only the first results of the metallurgical tests, we are convinced further fine-tuning can increase the average recovery to approximately 90%.
What’s also very important is that the head grade of the 5kg sample was on average 41% higher than the grade measured in the 50g assays. This very likely means the ‘nugget effect’ will cause the effective head grade to be higher than the average grade in the resource estimate.
Blackham Resources consolidated the Wiluna Goldfield, and currently controls 50km of the 55km strike length of the belt. The Matilda project has almost 1.4Moz of gold at an average grade of 2g/t in a JORC-compliant resource estimates and the project could be brought back into production very soon, as the Wiluna Gold plant is only 19km away from the Matilda mine.
Blackham is currently trading at A$0.19 for a market capitalization of A$10.4M, which means their gold is valued at only A$7.5/oz.
We believe there’s a lot of additional exploration potential and now it’s up to the management team to advance this project further and reach the 2Moz-milestone sometime in 2013.
Read the full press release here (pdf)
Disclosure: The author holds no position, but plans to buy Blackham Resources Ltd. in the near future. Please see our disclaimer for current positions.
